


Falling on Anann's Sword

by Phyllomania



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brainwashing, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:32:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phyllomania/pseuds/Phyllomania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier isn't sure who he is, but he knows that Steve and others want him to be happy. He's realized that he wants that, too. Unfortunately, for an asset of Hydra, "want" is a dangerous word. Spoilers for CA:tWS. For Avengers Kink meme prompt: "There is a kill switch"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Initiating Phase

**Author's Note:**

> TW note: While there is not self-harm in this fic in the traditional sense, parts of the Winter Soldier's programming requires him to damage himself (mainly the metal arm) at one point.
> 
> Still working on Abnegation, I swear to all the gods and the organizers of the multiverse. It's progressing slowly because I realized the next three parts were all insanely boring. Taking a break to torture Marvel's PTSD-racked character and doing what I promised I would never do, which is write MCU Bucky Barnes before we knew his ultimate fate.

~~~~Steve~~~~~~

They'd done it for Bucky's own good. The general idea had been that it was better to surround the shattered man with friends and people who knew what is was like to drown in darkness than keep him in a hospital. Especially since he kept having panic attacks in the hospital, resulting in the orderlies having to restrain him while he screamed in a combination of rage and fear of remembered pain. 

So they'd smuggled The Winter Soldier out, getting punched several times until Steve managed to calm the Bucky down, and got him into a room of the small, out of the way house that they'd used a large amount of SHIELD's hidden money to buy. The first room they put Bucky into wasn't much more than a cell, part of a converted basement, and it remained so until Bucky evened out, finally using full sentences and recognizing them as repeated visitors that wouldn't hurt him. Steve spent every possible moment with him, and when Steve couldn't Clint became the unofficial backup and babysitter. He'd been kind to Bucky since the beginning, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that the archer empathized with the recovering soldier. After all, he knew what it was like to have his brain ripped apart until it was no longer his. Natasha came and went, a little different each time, still trying on identities. 

Bucky had been doing well, after weeks of being anything but, and they'd made the decision to move him into a proper bedroom, the point having never been to imprison him. There had been a two-hour debate about whether he remembered what he said he did, or if he'd just figured out what they wanted to hear, but once the decision was made everyone was resolute about it.

So Steve had been the man who was so very close to being his friend again upstairs and wait in the doorway of his assigned room while Bucky inspected every corner and behind every piece of furniture like he expected something in room to bite him. Or shoot him. Or beat him. It was 30 minutes later when he finally sat on the bed and looked at Steve with wary hope.

"This is mine?" 

Steve nodded slowly, and smiled as he walked across the room and deposited pajamas, Bucky's cell phone, and an extra blanket onto the bed. 

Bucky got the strange look on his face that appeared whenever he was trying to remember something. "I...don't think I had a room."

Steve didn't let his smile falter, despite the way his blood ran cold. He and Sam had started their search for Bucky in the ruins of the Triskelion, digging until they reached the mostly-intact basement. He'd been confused by the equipment and cryo chamber until they'd found the videos. He'd watched the first one, then the second, then everything went sort of blank and when he came back to himself he was on his knees on the floor, the remains of his breakfast on the floor while Sam held onto his shoulder, pale himself, and shook his head when Steve tried to apologize for the breakdown. Steve breathed deep and willed himself back to the present.

"You have one now," is all he could manage to reply to Bucky's statement. Bucky shook his head to clear it -something he definitely picked up to make them feel better - and managed to smile back, if tremulously. 

"I'm glad. Thank you."

Steve swallow and beat back the urge to walk across the room and gather Bucky into his arms and hold him until he somehow turned back into the cocky brat who'd been his guardian and then followed him into battle without a second thought. Instead he nodded and glanced at the clock on the wall.

"You need anything before bed?" It was only thing he could think of to ask. Bucky's eyes scanned the room, more critically than cautiously this time, and shook his head. 

"No, I don't need to trouble you," he replied after a moment. Steve wished he'd stop apologizing. The Bucky he remembered would have answered with something completely inappropriate like 'a hot blonde', which had been stupid when he was doing it, but now Steve would do anything to hear anything close to that from Bucky. 

He smiled again, nodded, and backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

____

The screams woke Steve up, audible even through the walls, and the damn door wasn't opening fast enough on its hinges, so Steve simply ripped it off the frame, and did the same with Bucky's before skidding to a halt, taking in the scene before him.

_"It's your bed, isn't it?"_

Sam's words rattled around in Steve's head as he stared at the mess Bucky had made of his room. The mattress was torn to pieces, parts of it still embedded in the plates that made up his fingers. Destroyed blankets were littered on the floor amid pieces of the splintered headboard.

Bucky himself looked as bad as the bedding. His still-long hair masked his eyes - he hadn't let them near him with scissors yet; said he was afraid he'd hurt someone - but his chest was in the irregular bursts of someone having a panic attack.

Steve was across the room before he had time to think, his brain catching up only when he was halfway across it and Bucky had shoved himself deeper into the corner he was crouched in. Steve willed himself to stop, crouching down several feet from his friend. "Bucky?"

Bucky's head snapped up, and it was Bucky. Steve exhaled. So many times this had happened and they'd come in to find Bucky gone, drowned out by the thing Hydra had forced into his head. But this was Bucky. Raw and hurting and terrified, but definitely Bucky. 

"Steve?" He said, his voice barely above a whisper and yet still wracked with pain and suffering. 

"The-they were trying to tie me down. I don't know where they ar-- You should leave."

Steve's eyes flicked to the destroyed blankets, then back to Bucky. "We're the only ones here, Buc--"

"No! They're here and they - their plans are - . You have to GO. I can take them. I promise!" 

"You're at home, Bucky. The security is set and...." Steve stopped as Bucky suddenly climbed to his feet, and barely had time to react before Bucky shoved him into the corner he himself had just vacated, crouching down in front of him. Metal fingers closed around a shard of wood from the broken headboard, grasping it like a weapon.

It was then that Steve realized that Bucky wasn't there. He was far away. Maybe he was in a mountain cave, or in some laboratory where God himself dared not to tread, fighting to survive, but he wasn't in the bedroom or even the state as Steve. 

_Shit_ was the best his mind could come up with. He desperately wished he had his phone with him, or a pager, or anything at all. He needed someone who wasn't him for this sort of thing. Bucky stood and paced the room, still grasping the wood and spontaneously changing it from hand to hand, holding it so tightly that it splintered a bit more whenever it was in his left hand and left cuts on his flesh when it was in his right. Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, ready to hate himself for playing into the fantasy.

"Bucky, we'll need backup. Let me radio for help."

The soldier's eyes snapped back towards him, and he nodded. Steve pushed himself to his feet, shuffled over to the table where the phone they'd given Bucky lay. He picked it up, hoping that Bucky wouldn't tackle him thinking it was a bomb, but the brunette just continued to prowl the edges of the room, flinching at every sound heard outside the building. Fingers shaking, Steve dialed the number of the only person he could think of to help.

The voice on the other end of the line sounded frustrated and exhausted both.

"This better be good..."

Steve cut him off before he could say something else.

"Sam," he whispered, distressed by the look Bucky gave him. "I think he needs your help."

The pause was less than a half second. "I'll be right there." 

Steve dropped his hand, exhausted. Bucky was by his side in an instant, distressed and panicked. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," Steve replied carefully. "I got through. Backup will be here soon. 10 minutes." 

"You're sure they're really allies?" Bucky asked, then resumed his prowling before Steve could even answer. Outside, a car honked and Bucky dropped to a crouch and threw whatever weapon he thought he had in his hand towards the window. It shattered and that sound broke Bucky. He jumped Steve, pinning him to the ground and bodily covering him. "Can't let you die. You're the hero. The hero doesn't die."

Steve closed his eyes and willed Sam to drive as fast as he could without killing himself. Flying there would be ok, too.

~~~~Sam~~~~~~

Sam's fingers fumbled over the key Steve had given him, eyes not missing the shattered window on the second floor. As soon as he was in, he locked the door again, and then headed up the stairs, pausing only a second at the two shattered doors. He stepped into the doorway, taking in the scene in an instant. Steve on the floor, Bucky crouched over him like he was trying to take bullets, muttering something that Sam himself could not hear, but the words were obviously disturbing to Steve, who kept trying to move. Gently, letting his presence be known, Sam stepped through the doorway.

It took less than a second for Bucky to move across the room, picking up a weapon as he went. Sam froze as sharp, splintered wood pressed against his throat, over the jugular. 

"Bucky..." Steve's voice, uneven and genuinely scared. "He's the backup I called." 

Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Steve was feeding the flashback, which was probably all he could have thought of to control the situation, but it wouldn't help. Bucky shook his head.  
"No. Everyone was…no! It's a lie. There are no friends here. No allies." 

Sam locked onto the words. Where ever Bucky was, it definitely wasn't with the 107th. Steve had talked about that. About the Commandos. It had been as bad as war always was, but they had trusted each other. Bucky wasn't _with_ Steve, then. Steve was an interloper in whatever hell that Bucky had been thrown back into. Sam forced himself to ignore the deadly piece of wood at his throat and just _talk_

"Where are you?" 

Bucky's eyes turned dark. His voice shook as he tried to answer. "Hydra. Mountains. I don't know the exact location." 

"Were there beds there?" Sam asked carefully. Bucky looked confused for a second, then his expression went straight past frustration and straight to anger.

"They have to sleep, of course there are," he snapped, tightening his grip. It was impossible not to notice the blood welling up and Sam got the sickening feeling that it was aiding the flashback. Bucky and the Winter Soldier were both so used to pain that it was impossible to imagine anything else.

"And me?"

"I don't even know who you are," Bucky voice faltered.

"Yes, you do," Sam said firmly. "I am Sam Wilson. We've met many times."

Clouds and shadows danced across Bucky's vision, and he started to shake as the illusion started to shatter. Sam reached up carefully and pulled the thick splinter of wood away from his throat. Bucky let him, finally fighting against the flashback, reality flooding in and over the hell Bucky was in.

"And Steve?"

"Steve?" Bucky said, sounding more lost with each sound.

"Was he there?"

"Y--no. He didn't fall. They...tried to tell me he was dead but that's impossible. They would have shown me his..." Bucky was babbling and Sam nodded to Steve, who had been standing helplessly, but had the presence of mind to know when he was needed. He stepped forward and placed a hand on Bucky's shoulder. 

"I _am_ here. I am alive and so are you."

Bucky shattered, his weapon falling to the floor, and his body soon after, curling in on itself as he wrapped his arms around himself. Sam and Steve followed, with Steve pressing himself like a blanket across Bucky's back. Sam knelt in front of the both of them, hands resting gently on Bucky's thighs. 

"Focus on us, on this. You are here. It's July, there are crickets singing."

"I'm….in Steve's house?"

"Exactly," Sam replied, as lightly as he could while Bucky relaxed in millimeters. The young man - young-looking, Sam corrected - sagged and then collapsed down into himself completely and quickly.

"I'm so sorry," Bucky whispered against Sam's collar, and it was Steve's turn to shake. Obviously he'd heard it a lot tonight. Sam couldn't help but feel sorry for the supersoldier; out of his element and completely lost like he was. 

Sam shook his head. Now was not the time to worry about Steve. "It wasn't your fault."

"It never is, is it?" Bucky asked bitterly. "It's Hydra's fault, or Zola's, or some BTO brain-shrinker, but never mine."

Sam sighed. Bucky was still too wound up, too scared and desperately hoping that lashing out would help him. Or perhaps hoping that if he said enough shit maybe he'd get to forget everything, from what he'd seen when he'd helped Steve search for clues. 

"This is a talk for another time. Right now, what can we do to help?"

Bucky tensed, and shook all over, eyes flicking down to his hips, and Steve's hands resting on them. He opened his mouth. 

"The truth," Sam added, firmly, and Bucky jumped.

"Is it alright if I go back downstairs?" He asked, almost plaintively. Sam nodded, and shared a glance with Steve. The blond looked devastated by the request, but he didn't object. 

They stood up as one unit, Sam and Steve supporting Bucky but not crowding or trapping him, and made their way carefully back down to the basement, Bucky shaking the entire time, until the door shut behind him. Steve wordlessly excused himself and was back a moment later with a first aid kit. Bucky said nothing as he was led to the bed, but every muscle in his body tightening and the panels of his arm whirring as they got near it. Sam stopped, and Steve stepped up.

"Sit, Buck. We have to take care of you."

Bucky stared, for a long time, then his eyes turned distant. Steve said nothing, just moved himself to the edge of the bed and sat himself, space for Bucky beside him. Eventually, the brunette moved, slowly lowering himself into the provided space. Following orders, and they all knew it. Steve busied himself with first aid, using tweezers to pull what seemed dozens of splinters out of the flesh of Bucky's hand. Sam paused for a moment before kneeling in front of the bed, busying himself with removing shreds of cloth from the machinery of Bucky's metal arm. Bucky didn't flinch, or even move, the entire time, passively accepting the care until they'd finished; until Steve had carefully wrapped his hand in bandages. 

Sam rose back to his feet, and waited until Steve did the same before speaking again. "Do you want us to stay?"

Bucky flinched at the question. He always did, whenever he was asked what he wanted, the reaction seemingly involuntary, almost like it hurt him. He never answered such a question, and Sam kicked himself for asking. "Do you need us to stay?" 

"I..." Bucky trailed off, suddenly looking very small. "Please." 

Steve and Sam nodded in unison, Steve shifting up towards the headboard of the tiny bed. It was obvious that Bucky didn't want to lay down, and that was something to be respected at this point. Sam slid up next to Steve, barely enough room for the both of them, but they managed. Bucky smiled in thanks before putting himself at the foot of the bed, sitting crosslegged a few feet away. 

It took him almost two hours to get to sleep. Sam and Steve took another hour after that, watching carefully, keeping their feet carefully away from Bucky's chest and shoulders. They'd discovered very quickly that any sort of pressure would bring back the beast inside Bucky, and it wasn't always the one that fought back.

~~~~Bucky~~~~~~

____

Bucky woke up first, with a jerk and a stifled cry from a nightmare he couldn't remember trapped in his chest, as it had been for the year since Steve had found him; had held him down until he stopped fighting. Next to him and behind him, Steve stirred but didn't awake. Bucky shook his head, wondering not for the first time how the blond trusted him not to just snap his neck. It was completely unwarranted trust.

He crossed the room to grab a discarded bottle of water from a few days earlier and drank most of it in three gulps, trying to stop the burn in his throat. A sharp pain in his palm reminded him of his injuries, and he switched the bottle to his right hand to finish the bottle. When he turned back to the bed both Steve and Sam were watching him with concern. A way Steve had supposedly looked at him for months or even years. Bucky shook his head. It wasn't that he didn't _believe_ them when they told him about his past. He was sure it had happened, but every time he tried to remember it felt like he was using razors to fill a hole in his mind. 

"I'm fine," Bucky said before either of them could ask, his voice raspy to his own ears and, judging from the looks on Steve and Sam's faces, theirs as well. Sam snorted.

"No, you're not," Sam said as he stood up.

Bucky growled, suddenly glad for the wall at his back and the bottle crushed in hand. Sam stopped his advance. "Don't do this, Bucky. Focus on the here. It's too warm, you're not hurting enough. The fact that I'm speaking in English. Whatever you want, but don't you dare go back."

Bucky stared at Sam like he'd grown another head, but the words made it through. His head felt like it was splitting apart, so he focused on that, then the brilliant blue of Steve's eyes, and finally the close-shaved beard of the man in front of him. The bottle dropped from his hand and he simply curled his hands into loose fists, shaking slightly. "I don't want..." - another, new razor dug itself into his brain as he said it, and he flinched - "...to talk"

"Then don't," Sam said, Steve echoing him from where he now stood next to the bed. 

"Just remember," Sam continued. "That you're not anywhere but here. Ask for help. Learn your triggers and tell us what those are, at least."

"It was the blankets," Bucky said suddenly. "They were strangling me."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked gently, cajoling Bucky into continuing.

"I woke up, and they were wrapped around me. It felt like..." Bucky trailed off, unsure how to continue. Sam and Steve said nothing, although Steve was closer now. Bucky swallowed, trying to think of a good reason their concern. He'd tried to kill all of them. Still tried, sometimes. And yet for some reason they weren't scare of him. People said he was insane, but he was starting to think that they were more crazy. Steve, Sam, and the short-haired one that tended to look angry. _Clint_ , he remembered. 

"Don't worry," Sam said, and Bucky looked up at him as his brain caught up to reality. "Steve can keep the heat up so you don't need blankets for a while." 

"For now let's just get some breakfast," Steve said. "I'm starving."

Sam snorted, and Bucky managed to get the smile that he was supposed to give them in such circumstances, discovering that it was slightly easier than usual as he he led the way to the door. Behind him, he could hear Sam and Steve talking quietly and slowed down to hear. 

"Thanks, Sam."

"Anytime. He may be a bit worse than I'm used to, but I'll manage. "

"I...still..." Steve sounded sad to Bucky's ears and he felt guilty to be the cause of it. Again. 

"Oh, shut up. Neither of you deserve this. I'm happy to help." 

Bucky stopped abruptly, a few steps from the top of the staircase, and Sam swore under his breath behind him. 

"Sorry," Bucky ground out, an apology for both the moment and last night.

"Oh, for Christ's sa--," Sam trailed off. "It wasn't your fault, either. Just ask for help before it gets bad, next time."

Bucky turned to stare at both of them. At Sam's determined expressing and Steve's hopeful one.

"I can't promise, but I'll do my best."

The smile was even easier this time.


	2. Planning Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's programming tries to tell him something, but nobody is listening...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic is shaping up to be 5 chapters, with three POVs per chapter. Because, as anyone who has read my other fics know, I'm terrible at writing anything with a detached POV. ^^;
> 
> (Oh, and Clint is not comic relief, nor an idiot. He just tries to treat Bucky like a human being instead of glass, and that isn't always the best choice. Hopefully that's coming through.)

~~~ Clint ~~~ 

"You should probably sit down."

Clint was lying on his back on the floor with his boots resting on Bucky's bed, watching him carefully. 

Bucky shook his head. "I'm fine."

"You're either a terrible liar, or deluding yourself. You're clicking. You only do that when you're not ok," Clint replied, keeping his voice light to belay the concern. Bucky was doing more than clicking; he was pacing. Combined, they were cause for great concern. Clint and Bucky had come down to the basement when the repairmen had arrived to replace the window and fix the damage to the bedroom. Steve was required upstairs in case there were any questions, so Clint had offered to stay with Bucky. It was a good decision. 

Bucky blinked and looked down at his left hand, as though he hadn't realized that he was sporadically opening and closing it, again and again. "Sorry."

Clint's boots hit the floor with a thud and he spun around, still sitting, to look dryly at Bucky. "Don't apologize. Just come sit down."

Bucky stopped clenching his fist and nodded. Before he could move, however, there was a loud slam from upstairs, followed by cursing that was audible even through the thick walls of the room that had shifted from Bucky's holding cell to his safety blanket. The long-haired man dropped into a defensive crouch, even as Clint rose to his feet, knowing exactly where this was going.

"They just dropped the bed, Bucky. Keep it together," Clint said firmly, kneeling in front of the man who could rip his throat out without an effort. 

Bucky shook his head, as if to clear it, and that was when another thud echoed down the stairs and Clint wondered if it would be ok for him to walk upstairs and strangle the damn movers, but now wasn't the time because Bucky's eyes were going blank and dull, and that was never a good sign.

"Nah, kid. You really don't get to do _that_ because some idiot can't move a bed up the stairs," Clint growled and reached for Bucky - The Winter Soldier - knowing he was risking his life. "Tell me your name."

"I have no name," the man replied, and Clint decided to kill the movers after this was over. He shifted, taking The Soldier's jaw in his hand and forcing eye-contact.

"And your mission? Can you tell me that?" He demanded. Clint wondered briefly what Steve would think if he came down and found him dead with the Winter Soldier prowling the room like a trapped lion. He refused to let the universe find out.

"I don't...I...," the Soldier tried to reply, looking confused, although his back straightened a few moments later. "I haven't received one yet." 

"Think," Clint said firmly. "You have a mission. Steve gave it to you."

"Steve…the man with the shield?" the Winter Soldier said, voice confused again. Thank the lord for that, at least, Clint thought. He was still off-balance, then, to recognize Steve in any capacity. The arm that reached out to grab Clint's wrist instead of his throat was another clue. Clint steeled himself.

"Or take one from me. Your mission is...." Clint's eyes searched the room desperately, scanning over the sparse objects. His eyes paused over the remains of their breakfast lying on the table. "...waffles." 

The Winter Soldier blinked, and the blank look suddenly drained from his eyes, gaze turning sharp again as he stared at Clint in disbelief. "Waffles?"

Clint let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding and grinned. "Why not?

Bucky took a deep breath and smiled. The same tiny one that each one of them treasured, whenever they got it out of him. "Thank you."

"Not a problem," Clint said lightly and gestured to the floor. "I said you should sit down, after all."

Bucky laughed. It was silent laughter, but Clint couldn't help but feel proud that he was the cause of it. Bucky's metal hand was painfully clenched around his arm, but he didn't mention it, just stayed where he was while Bucky forced the last vestiges of the Winter Soldier back into the box where it belonged. 

"You seriously wanted me to have 'waffles' as a mission?" he asked, disbelief in his voice. 

"Shut up," Clint replied good-naturedly. "It was waffles or shampoo, and if you decided to take the mission I'd rather have another breakfast than perpetual showers!"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "No wonder Natasha thinks you're a knucklehead."

"She wouldn't dare, you're just trying to get me riled up," Clint said loftily, wondering briefly if he could get Bucky to spill the beans about what Natasha did say about him, but deciding against it right now. "Want to go see the new bed?"

Bucky looked at him, and the door, for a moment before he nodded. "I think I do." 

Clint turned towards the stairs, and unlocked the door. Behind him, he heard a strange noise, one that seemed a strangled cry of pain, but by the time he turned back to Bucky the man was on his feet, looking at him calmly and with a clear gaze. Clint shrugged. It had to have been his imagination.  
 

~~~ Bucky ~~~ 

Bucky examined the piece of pizza in his hand carefully, ignoring the obviously very serious discussion taking place in the kitchen. The fact that Clint had turned up the volume on the TV, and that Steve and Sam had chosen to go to a different room left no doubt that the conversation was about him, and Bucky had learned he usually didn't like what was said in such conversations. So he picked a piece of meat off the pizza and ate it carefully, then went back to examining the pie.

"C'mon, Steve already told us they had pizza in the '40s. Tell me you haven't forgotten _that_."

Bucky looked up at the archer, who was sitting on the back of the couch with his feet on the seat (Steve had given him a stern lecture, which Clint had promptly ignored), and shook his head. "It's been a while."

Clint sighed. "Least they could have done was give you pizza when you did their dirty work."

Bucky shook his head, tried to remember. "I don't remember what I ate, to be honest. I remember...packets."

"Please tell me they didn't feed you MREs for 70 years?" 

Bucky jumped, turning quickly to see Sam coming from the kitchen, a plate in his hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

"MRE?" Bucky asked, confused. It didn't sound familiar, but eating had been an order, like everything else. No reason for them to tell him what they were.

"Would have been in a can when you were...young," Sam said, pausing over the world. Bucky dropped his head in shame, but looked up when Sam continued. "More recently, ugly brown things."

"Maybe?" Bucky replied, racking his memory for the answer they wanted. Eventually Sam grinned and sat down next to him.

"Not a big deal. Just eat your pizza."

Bucky relaxed at the permission, and took a bite automatically in response to the imperative, so close to an order. The pizza _was_ good, he admitted in his mind, and for all that he didn't remember what he'd been fed by his handlers, it wasn't hard to realize it was better. He looked back as Steve walked into the room, and shifted towards Sam to try to make room on the couch. It quickly became apparent that it wouldn't work with Clint spread out as he was, so he slid to the ground and gave up his seat.  
Steve got the look that Bucky couldn't quite bear on his face, sad and frustrated all at once.

"Did I do something wrong?" Bucky asked quietly, moving over further in case Steve just didn't want him nearby. It wasn't the first time he'd been regulated to the corner while the mercenaries or other soldiers went about their business. 

Steve shook his head, still looking sad, and handed his pizza to Clint. Before Bucky knew it there was a hand in front of his face. Bucky recoiled for a moment, expecting for a moment to be hit, and then he realized Steve expected him to take it. He hesitated for a second, then did, and found himself hauled to his feet.

"First come, first serve," Steve said quietly, gesturing back to the couch.

"Unless it's a car and someone calls 'shotgun'," Clint added helpfully. The sound was followed by a yelp of indignation, and when Bucky looked over at the couch Sam was sitting on the couch, two pieces of pizza on his plate and Clint looking at him with a betrayed look. The paratrooper shrugged and beckoned to the empty spot on the couch. 

Cautiously, Bucky sat down. Immediately, Clint shoved himself off the back of the couch and perched on the arm nearest Bucky, leaving his spot empty. Steve looked like he was about to say something, but Sam reached up and pulled him down before he could. Silence fell over them for a minute, before Clint reached over Bucky to grab his pizza back from Sam and ended up in Bucky's lap when the paratrooper moved his plate further away.

Bucky froze, and everyone froze with him, Clint looking guilty and scrambled to move off of him, hands falling everywhere they all knew they shouldn't. Bucky closed his eyes and took several deep breaths as the archer levered himself up, pressure falling heavily on Bucky's prosthetic and then shoulder. Bucky tried to remember everything Sam had been teaching him. They were proud of him for only panicking once in three days; the only time he'd slipped since the Soldier had so painfully tried to rip its way through his skull in the basement the previous day. He didn't want to disappoint them. He felt a gentle touch on his right hand, and then someone was commanding him to open his eyes. Trembling, he forced himself to follow the order, taking in the TV in front of him, some actors he didn't recognize arguing about a girl. The smell of pizza came next, and the fingers stroking his hand were like nothing he'd felt for years. 

"There you go," someone was telling him. Bucky turned to see Sam watching him, which meant the fingers must be....

"Steve?"

"Yeah?" The words came from, as expected, his right side. Bucky didn't bother to look. He knew what expression would be on the blond's face, anyway, and didn't want to see it.

Bucky took one last deep breath. "I think I'm ok."

At his feet, Clint looked like he was about to punch himself in the face. Bucky looked at him, head cocked. "I'm ok. Please don't..."

"Nah. I think you should hit me. I deserve it."

Bucky shook his head desperately. No. Nobody he'd ever hit deserved it, and Clint certainly didn't. The adrenaline dumped into his system only a few seconds ago was doubled, and that...Bucky stood up suddenly, trying to ignore everyone's looks at once. "I need to be alone. I promise I'm ok. It's not your fault, Clint."

He fled towards the door, to the basement, and nobody stopped him. At the top of the stairs he paused and turned, looking sharply at Steve. "It's not his fault, Steve. Don't blame him."

The buzzing in his skull started when he'd gone only three steps, right after the door shut behind him, spiraling up into sharp pain that was almost nauseating. It scared him. More than anything, it hurt. It wasn't the clawing of the monster within him trying to get out, or the sharp, painful fear he felt when he was remembering things that he'd never intended to remember. It wasn't the first time it had happened. He'd tried to use Sam's tricks to fight back panic, and the ones that Clint had taught him to bury the Soldier and everything associated with that. It never worked. And it was so much worse than that, this time. With great effort he pulled himself up, headed up the stairs instead of down, falling heavily against the door. "Help..."

The door opened before he'd even finished, and Bucky wasn't sure if they'd been coming down to talk to him or had heard him cry out, but they were there and Steve was on his right and Sam on his left, and his head was on something that he was pretty sure was Clint's lap as the pain overtook him and he blacked out...  
 

~~~ Steve ~~~ 

Steve had been ready to yell at Clint as soon as Bucky was out of earshot, and was taken aback by the brunet's request. So he'd stood in confusion, wondering to do instead, when the thud of a body hitting the basement door resonated through the room, a choked cry for help following it. They'd moved as one, regardless of the standoff, to find Bucky curled up in on himself, face a picture of agony as he writhed, risking falling down the stairs. It was Sam who pulled him out of the stairwell, Steve frozen, and then Clint was on his knees in front of him, desperately asking what was wrong. Steve only echoed the sentiment, but Bucky seemed beyond words, everything he tried to say turning into a scream.

Steve stared. This wasn't anything they'd seen from Bucky before. Not the panicked reaction he had when he felt trapped, nor the disturbing darkness when his programming tried to reassert itself. This was agony, and fear. 

"Some sort of seizure?" Clint asked, where he'd pulled Bucky's head onto his lap to keep him from beating it against the floor. He sounded almost hopeful. Sam shook his head. 

"I don't think so."

Sam stood, ripping the blanket and pillows off the couch and laying them on the floor. As gently as possible, they maneuvered the young man onto them. Steve knelt, tried to get Bucky to look at him. "What do you need, Buck. How can we help?"

"An...order," Bucky gasped out, eyes still switching between agony and dull acceptance of whatever pain he was in. "Please, just tell me to _do_ something."

Steve shook his head, unwilling to do so and confused about why it would do anything. Sam looked at him, then back down the agonized man on the floor. Steve swallowed hard. Sweat was rolling off of Bucky's body, already soaking the blankets beneath him. He was holding Clint's hand in his left, and seemed to have just enough presence of mind to not use his full strength, but from the look on Clint's face it wasn't exactly a light touch, either. His right hand was clawing at the red star, like he was trying to rip it off.

"Steve, I think this is a time you do what he wants," Sam said gently. "You're the one he responds to."

Steve shook his head desperately, grabbing Bucky's right hand and holding onto it, to stop the awful sound and the way blood was starting to well up under Bucky's fingernails. Sam made a noise that was almost angry, and pulled Steve's head up to look at him.

"If you can't as a controller, pretend you're his CO. Pull rank on him!" Sam growled. Steve shook his head again, and Bucky screamed again, muscle contractions forcing his body into a sitting position. Clint shifted and wrapped his free arm around Bucky's back, supporting him.

"Dammit, Rogers. Do you really think you can hurt him more than this?"

"You can apologize later," Sam added, although he reached out and gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze as he stood. "But I think he'll forgive you."

Steve nodded and stood tall, trying to think of an order that wouldn't end badly; that wouldn't hurt Bucky any more than he already was. 

"Sergeant Barnes," he began, hesitating. Bucky looked up at him and shook his head. 

"Not him," Bucky got out. "Not me."

A sob pulled itself from Steve's chest, but he nodded. "On your feet, soldier!" 

Bucky's eyes rolled back in his head, turning lifeless and dull, and Steve hated himself for it. But the pain seemed to stop, at least. The person that was no longer remotely like Bucky let go of Clint's hand, shoving the former SHIELD assassin backwards as stood up and turned to Steve. 

"Orders?" The Soldier said, dull and flat. Steve balked, and was relieved to feel Sam's hand on his back, steadying him.

"Stand down. You are to go downstairs and wait. Do not move. You may sleep if you need to."

The soldier cocked his head, looked confused for a moment. "Are you ordering me to sleep?"

Clint growled, and Steve _hurt_ at what it revealed about how Bucky had been treated. "Yes, I am. 20 minutes."

The Soldier nodded and turned, seemingly no longer in pain as he headed towards the basement steps, doors shutting. Steve deflated, sitting heavily on the couch. Clint stood and made a beeline for the kitchen, and Sam sat beside him, hand still on his back. 

"Don't blame yourself, Steve," the paratrooper said calmly. "You did what you had to. We'll go down in a few minutes and see how he is."

"I--I don't want to be his handler. I want to be his friend," Steve said miserably. Sam nodded, and then Clint was back and shoving a glass of water into his hand. 

"We've all done things we don't want to do," Sam said softly, and Steve downed the water, trying to get ahold of himself. He had 20 minutes, and the idea of what he was going to find terrified him. The idea that maybe he'd chased away every single scrap of Bucky that they'd found over the months was a bowling ball deep in his stomach. 

"What if I ----?" 

Both Clint and Sam started to shake their heads before he finished. "You saw him, Steve..."

"...he was about to rip himself apart. You did what was necessary," Clint finished Sam's thought, eyes cold and hard. He was angry, Steve realized. As angry as Steve was scared. He wondered what Sam was thinking. Sam looked calm, but he was good at that.

Steve steeled himself and put the glass down. "We should go downstairs. Be there when he wakes up."

Bucky was, as ordered, asleep, laying on the bed like a corpse, chest rising and falling gently. His arms were lying straight at his sides next to him, and he didn't move as they let themselves into the room. Sam pulled the door shut when they were all inside, and Clint stationed himself next to it like a guard. Sam then sat in the chair in the corner, without a word. Steve himself sat next to the bed.  
It was several minutes later - exactly 20, Steve was willing to bet - when Bucky stirred, eyes opening to stare at the ceiling. Slowly, he sat up, turning to Steve. His eyes were dull and blank. Waiting for further instruction. Steve swallowed down bile and begged God to forgive him. 

"Bucky?" he asked quietly, relief flooding through him when Bucky's eyes flashed briefly with recognition. "How are you feeling?"

"I am not in need of rest or repair. If you need me I am ready," the soldier replied, and Clint shifted uncomfortably. 

Steve shook his head. "Not what I asked. How are you feeling?"

"I..." Bucky's eyes cleared a bit, confusion replacing blankness. "...am not in need of intervention."

Behind him, Steve heard Sam get up, and thought he was coming over, but a quick glance indicated that he was headed towards Clint, who looked like he was about to tear open the door and put an arrow through the eye of anyone who had worked on Bucky and was still alive. Steve laid a hand on the bed, each side of the soldier's hips, and waited until Bucky looked at him before trying again.

"C'mon Buck, tell me how you are."

The soldier continued to stare at him, but slowly - too slowly for Steve's liking - the darkness faded from his gaze, his body relaxing and folding in on itself. 

"Exhausted…I…hurts."

Steve smiled. "I know. I'm sorry. Thank you."

Bucky looked confused by the last, but at least it was Bucky looking confused. Whatever had happened, they hadn't lost him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And everything goes to hell in the next chapter (hint: The next stage of a military campaign after Initiation and Planning is "Execution"). This was the happy part of the fic!
> 
> ...Chapter 3 may take a few days, though, as the weekend has ended and that means I have to go to work again.


	3. Execution Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything falls apart…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the Russian is not wrong. Google Translate is usually pretty good with the short, important phrases. >.>
> 
> If this is disjointed I apologize. I was actually crying as I wrote it. I will proofread, promise. :(

~~~~~~~ Sam ~~~~~~~~~

Sam, Clint and Steve were all huddled around the counter in Steve's kitchen, sending the occasional furtive glance at the young man curled up on the sofa. Bucky seemed happier; whatever had happened that night with the pizza a fluke. He was smiling more, although it was sometimes impossible to know whether he wanted to smile, or if he was smiling because they wanted him to. Sam had been around enough veterans to know sometimes they just did what society wanted, and he'd learned that he should expect anything he knew to be magnified tenfold when dealing with Bucky.

They had become Bucky's unofficial defense force, each taking on a role. Clint was incredibly skilled at talking Bucky down when the Soldier was trying to reassert itself, as well as validating Bucky's very existence. He'd almost single-handedly kept Bucky grounded during a recent thunderstorm, curled up in the corner with the shaking man, Bucky's hand wrapped around Clint's wrist in a massive display of trust from a soldier who relied purely on his hands and arms in battle. 

Steve was, of course, the anchor of it all. They never would have even got through to Bucky at all without him, and it was still Steve who could get Bucky to smile the most, and get him back even when things seemed at their darkest.

Which left Sam with the nightmares, both at night and during the day. The dark moments when the programming wasn't trying to reinstate itself, but when instead the dark shards of memories that the kid had left were forcing their way to the surface. The nightmares, and the instincts that they brought with them. 

All of this meant that, if Bucky decided he was ready to leave the house for the first time, it would be with all three of them present. 

"Do you really think it's a good idea?" Steve asked, glancing worriedly at the couch, where Bucky was fiddling with the couch threads.

Clint and Sam nodded simultaneously. "He can't stay here forever," Sam said.

"We're better than them, but not by nearly as much as we should be," Hawkeye added. Sam gave him a look. He might agree that Bucky needed to leave the house, but to imply they were only marginally better than where Bucky had been before was a bit drastic. Barton shrugged, apparently sticking by his words.

Steve looked out at the living room, visibly torn. Sam pitied him. He really did. While Bucky hadn't displayed anything as severe - or frightening - since the night with the pizza, he would flinch sometimes, followed by a far-away, confused look, like he was trying to remember something. But that didn't change the fact that Bucky had been holed up in the house for months, and they were risking agoraphobia if it continued.

Steve sighed. "His terms. He says no or wants to leave, we leave."

"Of course."

"Somewhere quiet, during a slow time."

Clint snorted. "We're not idiots, Rogers."

Steve finally, finally nodded, and walked out to stand in front of Bucky, who looked up but didn't stop fidgeting.

"We want to talk to you," Steve said hesitantly, and Sam stopped himself just short of rolling his eyes. Steve wouldn’t be able to convince Bucky of anything if he sounded that unsure about it.

Bucky nodded. "You always do after you go into the kitchen together."

His tone was flat, simply stating a fact with no hint of accusation, but Steve winced anyway, before he looked at Sam for confirmation. Sam nodded firmly.

"We want to take you out for lunch," Steve garbled, all at once. Sam hid a smile behind his hand. He had a feeling Steve asked girls out on dates the same way.

That got Bucky's attention, and he tensed on the couch, a hole forming where he'd previously been picking. "You're sure?"

Sam nodded, because Steve looked like he was about to back down. "We're sure."

Bucky looked at all of them in turn. "What if I can't do it? What if I..."

The unspoken 'kill someone' lay heavy in the air, and Clint stepped forward, determined. "You won't."

Bucky trembled. "You promise to stop me."

Sam winced. It wasn't an 'if' that Bucky was voicing, but a 'when'. He nodded anyway, as did Steve and Clint. 

"When?" Bucky asked carefully.

"Tomorrow afternoon," Sam said firmly. Enough time for Bucky to steel himself, but not enough time for him to back out. Plus it was a Wednesday, which meant that not a lot of people would be dining out.

~~~~~~~ Clint ~~~~~~~~~

It was one of the stranger entourages Clint had been in, he had to admit. Something like escorting a prisoner, and at the same time nothing like at all like escorting a prisoner. The closest he'd come to what was happening now was when he'd guarded a politician during a mission in Afghanistan, when both governments had realized that the military wasn't enough. It hadn't been about keeping the man separate from the world, but keeping the world separate from the man.

Steve was leading the way into the restaurant, because Steve was capable of two things they needed: The first was his ability to part crowds before him, and the second was to draw the gaze of pretty much anyone near him, which meant that everyone was watching _Captain America_ and not the shadow walking behind him, looking around with equal parts wonder and caution.

And a whole lot of calculation, Clint amended. He knew that look. Had it himself whenever he was in a volatile situation. The need to know every possible escape route. Within 30 seconds of entering the room, Clint had no doubt that Bucky knew the quickest way to the door. When they finally made it to a table in the back corner of the room, Clint was sure that Bucky knew the way to high ground, to low ground, and to ground very far away, as well as just how many chairs and tables he'd have to break to hinder the efforts of anyone trying to follow him.

There was a pause once they reached the table, as they tried to figure out how to seat themselves. It ended with Steve and Bucky on the booth side of the seating, with Sam on the right and Clint on the left, chairs turned so that if Bucky did feel the need to run, he wouldn't be trapped, but he was also surrounded by them, and still slightly cut off from the rest of the world. 

The waitress brought their menus, looking curiously over at Bucky and with the usual expression women - and the occasional gay man - gave Steve, and took their drink orders. Bucky looked calm, but his hand twitched when he was addressed directly, prompting both Steve and Clint to reach out for him. A few seconds later, he ordered a coke, copying Steve. The waitress smiled at them and left, and Bucky buried himself in the menu, looking a bit overwhelmed by the choices and the general crowding of the pictures and layout.

"What would you like?" Clint asked gently, taking the menu from his hands.

"I...meat?" Bucky tried, glancing around like he thought the request was a trap and they were going to punish him for asking.

"Chicken, beef, pork...burger?" Clint tried, casting a hopeful gaze at Sam and Steve. This was going to be like pulling teeth, he realized. 

"Can I get a cheeseburger? Some of...them...used to eat them. They looked good."

Clint took a moment to curse anyone who had just eaten in front of the Soldier while feeding him MREs, and nodded, feeling like he was guiding a very small child through his first menu. "What would you like on it?"

Bucky finally looked at him. "What do you like?"

Clint grinned and started to explain every topping available, guiding Bucky towards fresh vegetables and away from relish, until they finally had something that exactly what he wanted. When the waitress came, they let Bucky place his order first, while the waitress looked on confused. Bucky relaxed as soon as she was gone, and soon they were chatting, Bucky offering very little input but seemingly unconcerned with what was happening. 

When the food arrived, he looked at it with some degree of suspicion, before slowly lifting it to his mouth. 

He smiled. It was a triumphant moment for humanity, Clint thought.

Of course, that was when Bucky screamed.

It was the same blood-curdling, agonized scream from the night with the pizza, and his hands went to his head like it was about to explode.

Steve was on his feet in an instant, questioning Bucky, asking how he could help, and Clint turned to the rest of the customers, trying to wave them away.

"I'm sorry. He's an...epileptic," Clint said, grasping at straws for an explanation and latching on to what he'd asked when it had happened most recently. The nearest table looked annoyed and leaned over to say something to her husband about bringing freaks to restaurants, and Clint suppressed the urge to strangle her in favor of trying to help the still-screaming Bucky. 

Steve steeled himself, obviously about to try to order Bucky to do something. 

Before he could, Bucky stopped moving, suddenly completely silent. Clint felt a chill; an instinctual warming that everything was about to go tit's up. A brief glance at Sam confirmed that he felt the same way.

The fingernails of Bucky's natural arm tightened at his temple hard enough to draw blood, then fell abruptly to the table. Bucky's head snapped up, seeking each of their eyes in turn, and it wasn't the pain but the utter _lack of caring_ that floored Clint. Bucky turned to Steve last.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, calmly, and with great effort.

"For wha...," Steve began, only to be cut off abruptly.

_"ya ponimayu"_

Clint froze completely at the cold, clipped sounds. He understood the words only because Natasha had taught him 'I don't understand', and it wasn't difficult to figure out Bucky had skipped the negative.

All three of them pleaded for Bucky not to move at once, the words slightly different but the sentiment the same.

Bucky - The Winter Soldier - ignored them, standing so quickly the table jilted and nearly flipped before Steve instinctively stabled it. Clint grabbed for Bucky's arm and the Winter Soldier turned to him for one brief moment before twisting into a throw. Clint barely had time to brace himself before he was flipped, landing heavily on the table, which shattered under his weight. Then the Soldier turned, striding deliberately towards the door. Steve moved to pursue, but Sam hesitated. Clint gritted his teeth and shook his head. "I'm fine, go after him!"

Sam paused, but nodded before vaulting over the table, in pursuit of Steve and Buc-The Winter Soldier.

Painfully, and as quickly as he could, Clint got to his feet, only to find several customers and their waitress staring at him.

The waitress spoke first. "I know he has a disability, but you'll need to pay for the table, and your food."

"Oh, for..." Clint bit off the curse and ripped his wallet out of his jeans, tossing it to her before heading to the door. "Use the blue credit card or the cash. The black and silver debit card is worthless now."

He didn't wait for a response. Once outside he cast around, then followed. It wasn't difficult to figure out where The Winter Soldier had gone, the destruction minor but easy to see, and the terrified looks of the people even more obvious.

At least, it was obvious until he reached the asphalt parking lot of Target, nearly running into Sam and Steve as they stared, confused.

"Barton," Steve asked. "Can you track him?'

"Which way was he headed when you saw him last?"

Steve and Sam pointed in a similar direction - a good sign, and towards the woods, an even better sign. Clint strode across the lot, examining every broken branch or pathway. Most were deer. One bear, which he though for a moment might have been the Soldier before he realized the branches had been broken long ago, then...

"This is the entry point," he said, and could practically feel the relief from Steve and Sam as he took off, leading the way. the woods were quiet, which meant either the Soldier was so far ahead of them that it might be hopeless, or he had stopped. _Or,_ Clint amended, he was waiting in ambush. 

It was Steve who located him first, in the end, enhanced hearing catching what Clint could only see and not well enough, and he veered to the left, Clint and Sam following without hesitation.

The sound Steve made was not one Clint had heard only on the battlefield; the sound of man faced with something he never expected to see. The cross between despair, horror and the urge to retch. Paired with Sam's 'oh my god' Clint wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, as he moved around them.

And forced back his own urge to throw up.

The Winter Soldier - or Bucky. Clint wasn't sure - was on his hands and knees on the ground, repeating something Clint couldn't quite hear in Russian. with blood streaming down his face where he'd apparently pulled parts of his hair out by the roots. More blood was welling up from the scarring around his left arm, dripping into the prosthetic's internals. 

The arm itself was ripped open, parts of it laying on the ground, split open and sparking, the blood slowly mixing with a green-black liquid that was boiling as it hit the air. The broken - missing - nails and bleeding fingers on the man's right hand indicated that he'd done the damage to himself, without any tool.

The worst part was the obvious pain on Bucky's face. He was choking, from the looks of it on blood from his own mouth, chest seizing each time he tried to speak, whatever words he was trying to say garbled. 

Steve unfroze first, dropping to his knees next to the wrecked body of his former best friend, wiping the blood from the sides of his face, trying not to touch the wounds on the side of his face. Clint ripped his t-shirt off, and then in half, handing part of it to Steve. He tried to wrap it around the arm, near the shoulder, concerned about the blood flow, and Bucky screamed as soon as he did, the sound raw and somewhere from the center of his body. Steve tried to hold him, and Sam was suddenly pushing Clint out the way, taking control.

"Call someone," Sam snapped, and Clint stared at him, non-comprehending. Sam growled, frustrated.

"You're the one with the contacts, however limited they may now be. We can hardly take him to GW, so call someone with access to a private hospital!"

Clint nodded, fumbling for his cellphone, trying to remember anyone who was still in power that could help them, scanning his contact list. Looking for...he frantically pushed a button. 

"Stark, do you still have medical facilities in DC?" he growled when the phone was answered. Steve looked at him with shock, and then turned back to Bucky, who grabbed his hand, the Russian suddenly changing. 

_"Spasi menya. Spasi menya. Spasi menya."_

Clint didn't recognize the words, but the tone was one he'd heard many times, from many soldiers, usually right before they died. As he tried to explain what was happening on the phone, he heard Steve responding in English.

"Hang on. Help is coming, I promise..."

~~~~~~~ Steve ~~~~~~~~~

There was one time in his entire life that Steve could remember feeling as helpless as he did in that moment. It was hammered into his skull, that moment hanging off the train, watching as Bucky fell out of sight. If only he'd actually looked for him back then, it would have been different now. If he'd looked then, Bucky could have lived out a long life, found a nice girl, and died an old man with grandchildren raised on tall tales and hyperbolic stories of heroism.

Instead, Bucky was bleeding on the ground, choking out “help me” like a broken record, the words traveling through so much blood and bile that it sounded like he was drowning. Dimly, he heard Sam yelling at Clint to call someone, and held onto Bucky when the paratrooper tried to take pressure off his arm and onto the shoulder that was responsible for the distressingly large puddle of blood under and around all of them. He heard Hawkeye screaming on the phone, voice as desperate and helpless as he himself felt, to someone who was both the first and last person Steve would have thought of to ask for help. 

In front of him Bucky coughed up more blood and phlegm, and Steve couldn't figure out where or how he could touch Bucky (because it was Bucky, the Winter Soldier had never indicated he was in pain) without hurting him. The young man wasn't responding to English assurances, so Steve switched to Russian, getting a surprised look from Sam, even as his unexpected ally continued to try to stem the flow of blood from Bucky's arm.

Unfortunately, Bucky didn't seem able to comprehend Russian, either, eyes sightlessly staring ahead while he begged for help, for release, for anything and everything. Steve tried to respond to each plea, using Hawkeye's shirt to keep the blood from the ravaged flesh around Bucky's face from getting into his eyes, hoping to at least save him that pain. As soon as Clint was off the phone they focused purely on survival first aid, and between the three of them they managed to get Bucky onto his back and out of the dirt turned to mud by his blood and whatever had been in his arm. Moving the agonized man onto his back nearly caused him to pass out, but had at least afforded them the option of applying pressure and attempting to bandage the wound around the mess of metal and flesh that had been the prosthetic. 

Steve continued to try to communicate, in English and Russian and a little bit of German, responding to whatever Bucky said in the same language, but it seemed like hours before the begging stopped, Bucky collapsing from either exhaustion or simple blood loss, whimpering quietly while Sam managed to – finally – get the blood flow from his arm to stop. 

A few minutes later the sound of a helicopter was heard, landing in the Target parking lot. How Stark was going to manage to explain that, he didn't know and didn't care, too relieved to see nurses running in with a stretcher, stopping in shock for a moment before their training kicked in and they were carefully lifting the now-delirious Bucky up and quickly removing him from the woods, loading him on the helicopter before any prying eyes or raised cell phones could record any images. They were telling them that only one could come, and Steve wasn't about to let Bucky out of his sight, so it wasn't any question. The medics handed Sam an address, and he nodded. Steve headed towards the helicopter, only to be stopped by a hand on his back.

“Don't freak out, Steve. He needs you.”

Steve wished he could believe Sam. As good-intentioned as Sam was, this wasn't a matter of freaking out. It was a matter of if Bucky wished to live or not. Stark could help; his doctors could help, but it didn't matter if Bucky died before they got him to a hospital.

Looking back as the helicopter took off, he only saw the blood on Sam's hands and clothes, and wished that it were his own and not Bucky's. Clint was on the phone again, trying to yell over the sound of the rotors...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is…not actually Hydra's final plan with their lost Soldier. It is the precursor and cause of the problem, but I actually have worse to do to the kid. :(


	4. Controlling Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winter Soldier gives his mission report. Bucky tries not to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this was the original thought I had. It just took me two chapters of PTSD flashbacks and a trip to a restaurant to get there. :(

~~~~~~~The Winter Soldier~~~~~~~~~

_"You do not deserve to live, if you will not follow orders."_

Bucky awoke with a gasp, eyes going wide from the pain as he tried to get his surroundings, only to realize he was tied down. A shadow fell over him and he flinched back, not sure why.

"Hey," the man with the blue eyes --- _Steve_ , for Christ's sake! --- said quietly, concern and exhaustion showing in every curve of his face. That was odd, Bucky thought. They didn't usually look worried. Angry and curious, but never worried. 

He didn't really have too much time to think about that, because his brain caught up then and began to try to process what his nerves were trying to tell him. The best he could manage was a choked, frightened sound. Pathetic. Bucky shook his head, tried to clear it. To figure out what was going on.

"I know you hate it," the man with the blu....Steve ---- said. Bucky stared at him, uncomprehending. "But you're going to need to stay calm."

Bucky tried to remember something deep in the back of his head. Something that he was sure was important. The man with the blue eyes was familiar. He...he gave missions. "Did I - complete...my mission?"

The ma ----- Steve----- looked shocked, and Bucky got the feeling that meant he hadn't, but before he could confirm his body betrayed him, and he felt himself falling back into blackness. 

....

When he woke up again there was the sound of fighting in the room. The man with the blue eyes was still there, yelling at a tall, slender man and the man who never sat down, with the short hair. Waiting for a report, the Winter Soldier assumed, and tried to speak. It came out oddly garbled, and one of the doctors - there were three of them, he noted dimly, looked at him, concerned. She came over with a light, shone it in his eyes. 

"Does he have any history of nerves disorders?" She asked the man with the blue eyes. 

__

_"You must always be healthy. This will help you stay healthy."_

"Not when I knew him..." The man with the blue eyes looked confused and sad. "Why?"

"He's been awake four times" - The Winter Soldier blinked. He could only remember two - "and even though we've stabilized him, his neurological responses are getting worse each time."

"I don't understand," the man said. The doctor shook her head. 

"I don't understand, either. Maybe it has something to do with the arm," she said. 

The Winter Soldier looked down. His arm looked like it was supposed to, at this point. Why were they so frustrated? The man with the blue eyes looked at him, realized he was awake.

"Rest, now." It was a command. The Soldier nodded. Accepted, and slipped back into unconsciousness.

...

He awoke again - was it the third time or the sixth, he couldn't remember. There was a tug on his arm and he looked down. A scientist he didn't recognize...so many of them, today, was working on his arm. Another man was there, too, pacing. The Winter Soldier thought he should know him, as well.

"What do you mean, something is missing?"

"I mean," the scientist said, "that something is missing. There are tubes here that don't lead to anything."

The Winter Soldier shook his head. Wondered how they wouldn't know it was supposed to be gone. He made a sound of confusion, and everyone turned to him.

"Don't suppose you know?" The scientist grumbled, and the Winter Soldier reminded himself not to say anything. Not if he wasn't commanded to. He'd been reprimanded for it in the past, even when observed by his...commander. 

"Even if he does," the pacing one said, "he won't tell you if you ask like that."

"I..." the man with the blue eyes seemed angry. The slender one - he smiled a lot, the Winter Soldier remembered although he couldn't quite remember how he knew - shook his head.

"We've been through this before, Steve."

The man with the blue eyes looked sick. The Winter Soldier tried to remember. He couldn't have failed his mission that badly, right? There would have been consequences if he had.

"Steve, we have to know..." That was from the scientist. The man - Steve? The Winter Soldier thought he should know the name - stood very straight before and stepped forward. The Winter Soldier relaxed. This was familiar. 

"Report, Soldier."  
The Winter Soldier - that wasn't his name, was it? They called him asset...no, wait...B...He gave up and tried to snap to attention instead. Immediately there was a sound of frustration from his right and Steve shoved him back down. The Soldier took a breath. He'd made a mistake. Enough, and they'd put him...

"Stay down. Report!" His handler looked so unsure. It was confusing.

"Mission was a success. The unstable element will be neutralized within 72 hours." The Winter Soldier tried to remember something he was sure was important.

"Did you get visual confirmation?"

"I..yes. I have it now...it was my mission to return the...asset...for disposal." Speaking was difficult. He couldn't figure out why.

He looked down, his handler following his gaze, to where the unfamiliar scientist was operating on his arm. Everyone's eyes followed his line of sight. The man at his arm swore, and The Winter Soldier felt the uncommon but not unknown feeling of his arm releasing from its mount, nerve feelings blazing and then going dead. The thick puddle of yellow fluid he wasn't used to. 

"I know what's missing," the man with the beard said at the same time as one of the women in lab coats - a doctor - gasped. 

"Don't keep us in suspense," the one who wouldn't stop moving said.

"Neurological symptoms, rapid fever, he's..." the woman started. The scientist cut her off.

"You can't wire a machine into a guy's BRAIN without something to stop his body saying 'get this out of me'. I should know, I've tried!" 

"I don't understand," the man with the blue eyes said. The Winter Soldier felt another wave of confusion. Men with blue eyes always knew things.

"Targeted immunosuppressant. To keep his body from rejecting his arm. He must have removed it."

"My mission," The Winter Soldier confirmed. "Neutralize the threat and return for disposal.".

"Oh my god.."

"They couldn't outright suggest he kill himself, so they programmed him to..."

"Neutralize himself." The man with the blue eyes sat down heavily, looking exhausted. "And only if he showed signs of breaking his primary programming. "

"Don't you dare hold yourself responsible," the slender one said.

"I'm with flyboy. This isn't your fault, and even if you'd known it was the right decision."

The man with the blue eyes moved more quickly than anyone the Winter Soldier had seen, other than him, pinning the scientist against the wall. The scientist seemed unworried, even as the slender one tried to get between them.

"Chill, Cap. Do you really think he would have wanted to be a puppet forever?" the scientist said.

"I..."

"The answer is 'no', regardless of what your omnipresent guilt says," the scientist said.

The blue-eyed one let go and turned back to him. It was hard to see his face, the Winter Soldier realized. He tried to focus. 

"You need to rest now, Buck. Go back to sleep."

Buck? Who the hell was Buck… Wait, no, that wasn't right. "I'm…Bucky."

The man - Steve, definitely Steve - 's head snapped up. "Bucky?"

"No. I...Maybe...Steve?" The Winter Soldier tried out thoughts, trying to form one single one. It...hurt. It was hard to see, too. His body wanted to follow the order to sleep. It was a good order. The doctor was poking at him and the scientist was calibrating something in his shoulder. He didn't know. He'd never needed to know. He didn't know now. Best to rest.  
 

~~~~~~~Hawkeye~~~~~~~~~

It was impossible to know if Bucky's question was genuine, or the result of the same confusion they'd been seeing from the brainwashed soldier since the day they'd taken him out of the hospital to Steve's house. From the look on Steve's face, he seemed to think it was genuine.

"Can you take it out?" Steve asked, eyes glancing between the doctor and Stark, expression simultaneously hopeful and defeated.

Stark shook his head. "I can try, but it's wired into his spinal cord in 30 different places. At best he'd be paralyzed, and it's more likely he'll die if I try."

Steve deflated, and Clint couldn't imagine a time when Captain America seemed quite so small. Facing an army, he'd been larger than life. To hear Natasha tell the story, he wasn't much smaller when taking down SHIELD. But now, sitting on the floor next to Bucky, he looked absolutely tiny.

"And he'll die anyway?" Steve asked, and Clint turned and walked out of the room, knowing the answer and not wanting to hear it. The heat of the hospital was stifling, choking him. He needed to get out and away. Ignoring the words of the nurses, he fled for the door. 

"Hawkeye?" A familiar voice called, and Clint looked up into the concerned eyes of Bruce Banner. He blinked, confused, before his brain reminded him that the doctor was an expert in biochemistry, and if Stark was calling in favors, Banner was a likely name to be called. 

"Down the hall, to the left," Clint said, and continued on his path to find somewhere safe. The stairwell caught his attention, and before he even knew what he was doing he was on the roof; the high point, for all the good it would do him now.

They'd been so damn close to, if not getting the Bucky that Rogers knew, to at least giving the soldier a life of his own, in which he made his own choices. And for all he understood that it wasn't Rogers' fault, or Sam's, he couldn't shake that it was his. He took a deep, steadying breath...

...and punched the wall, the pain grounding him. He stared at the dent in the aluminum of the vent, and wondered why Stark would have something so cheap in his private hospital. It was ridiculous. 

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he growled at whoever was listening. 

"You look like shit. Do you require cognitive recalibration?"

Clint looked up, never so glad to see the woman who had become his partner both in crime and saving the world. "Natasha. Thanks for coming." 

That brought Natasha to a halt, staring at him like he'd just uttered the two toxic words that had brought SHIELD to a smashing halt. "You really are messed up."

"Not me," Clint said quietly. Natasha, thankfully, bit her tongue and waited for him to speak. "Nat, they wanted him - they programmed him - to rip his own arm off."

Natasha looked bemused, head tilted to the side as she looked at him. "We've seen women programmed string up their own children in the town square. How is that worse?"

Clint shook his head, trying to put it into words. Natasha continued to watch him, and he realized that she _knew_ what the difference was. She'd been around Bucky enough to know just how hard he was fighting to get a life back, and just how damaged he was. She'd certainly heard enough from Rogers to know what they were trying to get back. 

"Seventy years," he came up with. Natasha shook her head before he'd even finished talking. 

"You can lie to Rogers or his new friend, but don't lie to me. You know you can't."

"Spite," Clint tried again. Natasha cocked her head the other way, and seemed willing to listen. "They did this to him purely out of _spite_."

"You're projecting, Barton," Natasha said softly, but she nodded, at least accepting the answer. Clint was relieved. To be honest he didn't know why he was so determined to save Bucky. Something to do with loyalty to Captain America and something about honest men. Maybe it was about Hydra destroying everything.

"They don't deserve to have him," Clint finally answered. "He's too good for them."

"They took everything," Natasha said in quiet agreement. "Rogers' best friend shouldn't get to be among them." 

Clint shrugged. It was as good an answer as anything he'd been able to articulate over the past months that he'd been helping with Bucky. He didn't mention that he just wanted to save Bucky for Bucky's sake, or maybe his own.

Natasha put a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Let's go talk to Captain America."

Clint began to shake his head, but stopped at the look on Natasha's face. She was definitely refusing to take no for an answer, so he didn't even try as she marched resolutely back down the staircase. 

Steve had left the room - likely been told to leave the room, given the army of people now surrounding Bucky, and was watching, holding onto the frame of the observation window so tightly that it was beginning to fracture under his fingers. Clint hung back, not sure what to say, but Natasha didn't even pause. 

"We have to stop meeting like this."

Steve ripped his gaze away from the critical care unit long enough to glance at Natasha. Clint stepped through the door, just so Rogers wouldn't feel he was being spied on.

"Barton called you."

"He usually does when he's out of his league," Natasha replied quietly, moving up to stand so close to Steve that Clint was sure he could feel her body warmth. It was a strange talent that was uniquely Black Widow, being able to comfort instead of confront when in someone's body space. She could confront, too, of course, but now now. "What can I do, Steve?"

Steve bowed his head miserably. "He got worse when they tried some sort of drug they usually use for these things. I don't even know what _I_ can do." 

Natasha gave him a flat look. "You've been doing pretty well so far."

"He's lying on a bed dying," Steve replied, voice shaking like he was about to break apart. Clint felt genuinely sorry for him.

"But he's not dead, is he?" Natasha said. "Your track record for succeeding in the impossible is pretty strong, Cap."

Steve shook his head. "They say...if they don't find a replacement suppressant, he'll be dead in 3-4 days, and that's if they put him on machines I've never even heard of."

Natasha sighed and threw a glance back at Clint. It wasn't one he knew, but he stepped up next to Steve, watching as they drew blood from Bucky's right arm, and took samples from his right, all while Tony examined the bracket of the metal arm, trying to figure out how to remove it safely and looking more defeated every second. The doctors cleared out with their samples, and the remaining nurse waved Steve back in. The blond paused in the door, looking back at Natasha.

"Do you want to see him?"

Natasha smiled. "I'm good. I doubt he likes too many people in the room, anyway."

Silence fell after the door closed behind Steve, and they both stared through the window as Steve walked up to the bed, sitting beside it. After several minutes, Natasha spoke.

"Who is going to help him get through the guilt if he lives and eventually remembers? You? Rogers? Because no offense, but you tend to convince yourself of guilt on a regular basis."

Clint stared at her, hard. "Yes."

Natasha nodded, seemingly taking the non-answer as it stood. "Fine. Let's go."

"What?"

"Just because everything in my life fell apart doesn't mean I have to sit idly by and watch people die. We're going to borrow a jet from Stark, go to Russia and find anyone who knows anything."

"Natasha, I...."

"Four days is an eternity for people like us to get things done, Barton, but not if we sit around on our asses. Move it!"  
 

~~~~~~~Sam Wilson~~~~~~~~~

The last time Sam could remember things getting so FUBAR in so short a time was when Riley had died. He wasn't sure where Clint had gone, but he trusted the man to make the right decisions, if occasionally rash ones.

Steve, on the other hand, he wasn't so sure about. Sam himself may have only had a few hours of sleep, in fits and starts, but he was pretty sure Steve hadn't slept since they brought Bucky in as a mess of blood and wires. He only ate what was brought to him, as well. So far a lot of coffee - not that it probably did anything for him - and a few protein bars. Otherwise he stood at a constant vigil, talking to Bucky whenever he was awake and occasionally when he was asleep.

Not that Sam expected anything different. Bucky had shown more signs of psychological awareness in the past 24 hours than he had for the past year, even as his body destroyed itself from the inside. He had lost the ability move his arms or legs a few hours ago; Sam had overheard a nurse saying that he was now comparable to level 9 on the EDSS. A quick web search later and he'd discovered that the EDSS was a scale for disability in multiple sclerosis, of which there were only ten levels.

Level ten was death. 

He hadn't slept since then, either. Right now, he was watching over Steve, the usually so strong man curled up next to Bucky's bed, holding his bandaged hand carefully, even knowing that it was unlikely that Bucky could feel it.

They were alone in the room. Stark had given up on trying to remove the shoulder system a while ago, when it became apparent that the only actual option would kill Bucky in the process. Instead, he'd taken the arm and was working on it in an adjacent room, trying to recreate the delivery system on the off chance that someone in the lab managed to come up with a substance that could emulate the suppressant that had kept Bucky alive for over half a century. 

Quietly, Sam crossed the room and sat next to Steve, willing to be support if the man needed it, but recognizing that the most important thing was silence. A few minutes later, a man came into the room, carrying a clipboard. Steve looked at him with suspicion. Given that the last man with a clipboard had given Bucky something that made him worse, Sam thought the suspicion was justified. 

"You should know," the man began. "That we're doing everything we can to expedite these processes."

"Which means that you haven't thought of anything at all," Steve said quietly. The man glared at him.

"Not true. The scientists have ruled out several possibilities," he said, and Sam put a hand on Steve's back, just in case he needed a reminder to stay calm. "We also had an idea that might slow the process."

Steve perked up the tiniest amount, his hand tightening around Bucky's. The dying soldier looked at the doctor with eyes that were no longer dull from lack of humanity, but lack of fight and life left within them. Sam wasn't sure how Steve could bear to watch every second of that. 

"We are aware that he has a cryogenic tube. We thought maybe if we put him back i...."

Bucky made a strangled noise, and all three of them turned to look at him. The movements were irregular, but it was obvious the man was shaking his head. Genuine fear, Sam realized, and Steve looked like his heart was breaking as he turned back to the doctor.

"Any guarantee it will work?" Steve said, and flinched at the dismayed sound Bucky made.

The doctor shook his head. "No. It's a very small chance it will work. He's in the very late stages of demyelination, and it may be that the shock of freezing will kill him outright."

Steve froze, and Sam tightened his grip, afraid that the people's hero was about to throw the doctor across the room. He cursed the man for his lack of bedside manner before realizing that probably this guy was a research doctor, not used to dealing with patients. At least, he hoped so. 

On the bed, Bucky started choking, violently, and suddenly machines were going off in warning. Steve jumped back to his side, effectively dismissing the doctor, as nurses rushed into the room, checking Bucky's vitals with practiced motions. One ordered Steve to move, but the man seemed frozen, so Sam simply grabbed his arm and hauled him back bodily and shoved him into a chair, blocking his view. 

"We need to intubate, now," one of the nurses said, and a new machine, huge and foreboding, was wheeled towards the bed. Steve wrapped his arms around his chest and Sam knelt beside the chair.

"They're doing what they can," he tried to assure the blond, even knowing he would fail.

"I...don't want to lose him, Sam. He wasn't supposed to be here, and he _is_ , and I don't want to lose him."

Over by the bed, the screaming of the warning sirens calmed, replaced by another, new, beeping. A nurse came over slowly, and Sam got up to allow her room to kneel where he'd been.

"Captain Rogers?" she said quietly, waiting for Steve to look at her before continuing.

"Is he...?" Steve asked, expecting one answer and looking confused when the woman hesitated, then shook her head.

"Not yet. His lungs and throat have stopped working. His heart will be next. We...have technology to bypass his heart and keep his blood flowing, but it only lasts a few hours."

Steve made a sound like a sob, shoving himself out of the chair to go back to the bed, where Bucky was covered with tubes, face barely visible under the mask he was wearing. 

"What use is it if I can save the world from a goddamn alien invasion, but I can't save one good man?" he asked, sounding almost like a child, as he took Bucky's hand in his own again. 

Sam thought that answer over. "Bucky believed you could save the world, right? He was willing to go off the deep edge with you."

Steve looked at him, shocked and Sam cocked his head, wondering what he'd said.

"Someone else told me something nearly identical the...first time I lost him."

Sam nodded, understanding and wondering who it was that might have said that. 

The nurse stepped forward, obviously used to inserting herself into conversations. "Captain Rogers, we need to take him to a clean room to put in the equipment for his heart."

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, then pinned her with a glance. "How likely is it he'll come back out?"

"50-50," the woman said honestly. Steve didn't move for a moment, then slowly let go of Bucky's hand and stepped back. The woman beckoned to the door, and two large orderlies and a second nurse entered, wheeling Bucky away while Steve stared after the gurney, lost. Sam stepped up.

"You need to sit down," he said quietly. "Talk to me."

"What the hell do you want me to say?" Steve snapped, eyes angry. Sam ignored the anger. 

"Tell me about Bucky. Everything good that you remember. The bad, too. Tell me about his legacy."

Steve stared for a moment, then nodded and started talking. A lot of it Sam already knew, but he stayed quiet and just listened while Steve talked about a boy and a young man with a larger-than-life personality and what sounded like the heart of a bull and the brains to match. A man that Steve worshipped, and, if one listened between the lines, worshipped Steve right back. He could understand that. Steve went into every detail, talk of bridges of fire and missing keys and dances with too many girls and Bucky enjoying every minute of them.

And Sam listened until Steve talked himself out, and just sat there staring blankly at the space Bucky had been wheel out of.

"Sounds like a fighter," Sam said, believing it. Steve smiled sadly.

"We both were. He was just better at it than I was."

"Then trust him," Sam said firmly, one hand on Steve's knee. "Trust him to be the fighter you just described."

Steve nodded after a moment. "I do. I always have. I just..."

"I know. Either way, we'll get through this. I promise," Sam said. He hoped it would be something they'd get through in a group, but as two doctors ran through the hallway, past Steve's room and into the hallway where they'd taken Bucky he wasn't sure it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Convenient that Steve, Pierce and Zola all have blue eyes.
> 
> Also, I am so sorry. I'm a terrible person. :(


	5. Concluding Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Bucky at death's door with one foot over the threshold, Clint and Natasha do what they do best and smash heads for the right reasons; Sam…provides exposition (sorry, Sam!) and Steve remembers that Captain America doesn't give up, nor do Howling Commandos.

~~~~~~Clint Barton~~~~~~~~

The Hydra agent collapsed under Clint's stranglehold, and Clint couldn't shake the feeling that Natasha had let him take point purely so he could work out his stress on the faces of the soldiers that were so futilely trying to stop them. Indeed, when she dropped down from the ventilation shaft, not a hair out of place, and calmly took the place in front of him, he knew it for fact. He said nothing, just shook his head and made sure both knife and bow were at the ready.

It had served quite nicely to take out the sentry outside the door, though. Poor man hadn't seen what was coming. He saw it after; the arrow sticking out of his eye while Natasha rolled him into a ditch, out of sight of the already-disabled camera. Clint felt no regret. The Black Widow's few remaining contacts had confirmed - under extreme duress - that the military base they were currently charging into had been or was under Hydra control. That alone was enough for Clint to happily kill every one of them. Natasha had smiled kindly, told them to have the jet gassed when they returned, and calmly Widow Bit the woman who tried to object. 

Then they had stolen a boat and made their way to the way-too-cliché island in the middle of a glass-black lake. Upon approach, Natasha had given him her most deadly smile and leaped off the edge of the boat, slipping under the cold water. Less than five minutes later a flash from shore, and Clint had unleashed the arrow towards it. He hadn't meant for it to kill. He didn't care that it had. 

And now they were inside, heading deep into the belly of the dark military base that would, hopefully, cough up a cure for Bucky.

Ahead of him, Natasha dropped to a crouch and Clint whipped out his bow, an arrow in it before it had even unlocked, and unleashed as soon as it had. The front guard dropped, and Natasha sprang forward to take the second out before he even noticed that his partner had fallen. She looked back at him when she was finished, eyes dark and bright all at once.

"Nice to see you haven't lost it, Barton."

"You're the one that is trying to become a new person," Clint said as he whipped around and sent an arrow at a dark shadow lumbering towards them inefficiently and ineffectively. He finally didn't feel helpless, and it didn't hurt that Natasha was at his side. 

"And you're the one that's spent the last year babysitting," Natasha shot back, reaching up to grab onto the grilling above her head, kicking up and around. A few thuds later and a body fell, Natasha lithely landing on it as she came back down. 

Clint grinned, the expression changing vicious as three more soldiers came towards them, one on his radio. A bite hit the man, dropping him, at the same moment an arrow went through the radio. The other two had the wisdom to look concerned, right before they were felled as well.

10 minutes Clint found himself in front of a solid metal door, staring at it with Natasha next to him. The warning alarms had finally set in, and they could hear the sounds of at least a dozen pairs of feet coming towards them. Clint paused, and Natasha cupped her hands into a stirrup and jerked her head at the ventilation shafts above her head.

"Up you go, bird-brain," she said. Clint nodded, springing up into the ventilation, straddling one of the bigger pipes. No playing around, his quiver set for standard arrowheads, one pulled and another in his fingers, ready to let fly right after. Natasha stood in the middle of the floor, poised for action and posing as bait all at the same time.

They came from three directions at once, and one from each direction fell before they'd even aimed their guns. Then Natasha was moving, a flurry of death and motion that saw two more fall, shot by their own ally's guns. One managed to get his hands on her, and 5 seconds later dropped to the ground, nose bloodied from a punch, as another that had been approaching her was knocked out by a kick given momentum by the fall of the man who'd held her. 

The next five paused, which was their undoing as Clint all of them out with only three arrows. By the time they hit the ground the last two of their allies had been neutralized by a combination of fists and electric shock.

"Fifteen, then," Natasha said with a toss of her head as Clint jumped to the ground. They both turned to the last man standing. Tall, skinny, with a hooked nose and a uniform that implied he thought that he had for more power than he did. He turned red and started cursing at his soldiers, both the dead and the unconscious, in Russian. Natasha let him finish before she stepped up. 

"Not two men," she said with a smile so cold it could have frozen the sun. "One man and a woman."

The officer froze, staring at her in shock for the brief moment before he fell to the ground, as unconscious as most of his men, but not as dead as some. Clint didn't even spare him a look as he straddled him, finding the key card they needed in his breast pocket. He tossed it to Natasha, who was already scanning the keypad for the code. A minute later she shook her head in frustration. "I can't get a read."

Clint nodded, as cold as she was, and turned back to the man under him, slapping him hard in the face. It didn't wake him up, but it made Clint feel better before he reached back and hit a button on his quiver, coming up with a syringe-tipped arrow, which he plunged into the man's heart.

The man awoke with a scream as 3ccs of epinephrine went straight to his heart, the organ convulsing so hard Clint could actually see it beating under the uniform jacket. 

"Code," Clint growled. The man stared at him stubbornly, or maybe in too much pain to get what was happening.

"No!" he growled in heavily-accented English, and Clint shrugged and picked him up a few inches and back down, the man's teeth rattling in his jaw as his head hit the floor. Natasha dropped to her knees, legs bracketing the man's head. She leaned down and whispered something in Russian that made the man go green, before she switched back to English. 

"Let me count the ways you can die," she said. "I can electrocute you with this, or I can snap your neck. Hawkeye here could also give you cardiac arrest, cut your throat, or maybe simply strangle you."

The man went pale, and glanced at Clint for confirmation that she meant it. Clint shrugged and reached for his knife. 

"I---- 4-9-3-7-2, but you will never succeed. There's nothing here! Hail Hy---" the man relented in a mix of blubbering fear and defiance. Clint sneered at the cowardice, and Natasha shrugged as she stood, dropping her gauntlet in what Clint assumed was a carefully planned accident. 

"Oops," she said as she bent to retrieve the weapon. She didn't bother to see if the man was still alive as she strode to the door, entering the code and swiping the card. It rolled open before them, exposing a series of doors both ajar and closed tight.

"Get moving, Barton," she began, headed for the first door on the right.

"Shouldn't be too hard," Clint said grimly. "We're looking for the room with the giant freezer, right?"

"Or the glorified lobotomy equipment."

Clint steeled himself and threw open the first door. Picking through Hydra science experiments wasn't his idea of a good time, but he would pick through far worse if he had to. His watch beeped as he stepped forward, and he looked down.

It had been 48 hours since they left. Clint pulled the door shut on a room of dead and desiccated monsters and tried the next, Natasha doing the same behind him.

It took ten doors before Clint found it. "Nat..."

She was at his side in an instant, and they were both staring at the contents of the room. The dark, foreboding chair in the center of the room, something staining the floor that Clint tried not to think about. A dead prosthetic rested on a table, gutted, and in the corner and empty tank, just the right size for a body, in the corner, stood at attention.  


Clint steeled himself and crossed the threshold, heading for the arm first; it seemed the most likely hope, but stopped when he realized Natasha wasn't with him. Frustrated and confused, he turned to her. 

The look on her face wasn't one he'd seen often. Twice before. Once when he'd decided not to kill her and once when they'd been called to defend the world from an invasion of giant fucking space whales and an army of creatures from the black lagoon.

"They can't have him," she said finally. 

Clint nodded grimly. "Exactly."

~~~~~~Sam Wilson~~~~~~~

If there was one thing Sam hated more than anything, it was feeling helpless. After his tours, he had returned battered and helpless, until the day he realized that mourning forever wasn't worth it, pulled himself up, and went to try to help others see the simple value in surviving.

Unfortunately, this was different. This wasn't helping veterans to come to terms with everything that had happened to them. This wasn't helping a woman learn to breathe and feel the fabric of the couch under her fingers instead of trying to hide under it when a fireworks display started, or reminding a young man who'd seen too much in his 25 years of life that there was still joy to be found in the world. 

This was helplessness of the worst kind. Sam wished he could understand exactly what Steve was feeling. He knew the man blamed himself. He knew that Steve shouldn't blame himself, because trying to free Bucky from the prison of his mind was nothing but a noble task. It wasn't the first time such an effort had ended badly, the damaged person, no matter how loved, taking their own life. 

But Bucky wasn't trying to take his own life. He'd actually, however slowly, been trying to take his own life _back_. And been assassinated for it, by people who weren't even around.

And Steve was blaming himself, because apparently he should have seen it coming or something. It was a crazy notion for Steve to have, but Sam understood it and was at a loss for something to say. He'd left the room a while ago, to give Steve some time alone with Bucky, as it became increasingly more clear that Bucky might not survive this. The doctors thought six hours at most. 

Sam had spent the rest of the time wandering around, watching various people doing their best to help. Tony Stark was bent over the arm, screws and metal and tools that Sam had no idea as to their purpose on the bench next to him, trying to recreate the delivery device that Bucky had been programmed to rip out of himself. In the basement, an entire flock of biochemists and immunologists were working with blood samples to try to recreate an immunosuppressant that would emulate whatever Hydra had been using. They looked frustrated, distraught, as they worked, crucially aware that the days and weeks that it would usually take to come up with such a thing was far more time than they had. Sam let himself into the entryway, where one of the scientists was taking a break, head between his hands.

"You alright?" he asked, instinctively. The scientist looked up, and Sam blinked. "...Dr Banner."

"Feeling a little useless. Not uncommon."

"I think everyone else agrees with you," Sam agreed and went to sit beside the exhausted scientist. "Except for the doctor that put in the cardiac bypass machine, maybe."

Banner looked at him and shook his head. "I should get back to work."

"Anything I can do to help?" A silly question, but Sam asked anyway. 

Banner sighed. "Go back and convince Steve that he isn't responsible?"

Sam nodded as the scientist left, staring at the floor. It was a universal feeling of helplessness, at least. Even the people who hadn't spent the year getting to know Bucky seemed beaten down. Probably because it was Steve who had asked. Or maybe because they all knew what it felt like to be helpless. 

Sam's phone rang, and he stared at it, the flashing screen with "Clint Barton" before he pulled it up to his ear. 

"Wilson," the man began talking before he could even acknowledge the call. "We have the drug. How long do we have?"

Sam stared ahead, doing math and wondering how it was going to play out. Even in a Stark jet... "Doctors think about 4 hours until brain death."

Clint growled, loud, over the phone. When he spoke, it was the voice of a man who had cheated death many times. "Keep him alive for 6. We'll get there."

"Yeah," Sam said as the phone cut off, unsure if they even could. But it was a start. He strode back to the room where Bucky was, and nearly ran into Tony as he rounded the corner. The mechanical engineer was holding Bucky's arm in his hand, and looked at least a bit more hopeful than everyone else trying to help Bucky.

"I've got the arm wired, if we can figure out what to put in it," he said by way of greeting. Sam nodded.

"And Clint has what to put in the arm, if he can get it here," Sam replied.

"Good thing we are people who subsist on making what-ifs reality," Tony said, the same darkly determined tone as Barton had used, simultaneously confident and anything but. They let themselves into the room together, where Steve hadn't moved from his vigil at Bucky's bedside since he'd been wheeled back in covered in tubes and surrounded by machines. He looked at both of them, optimism abused and weak, but not gone.

"Arm is fixed, Natasha and Barton have found what we need in Russia..." Sam started to say...

"But they're in Russia," Steve finished. "10 hours out."

Tony put the arm soundly on the table, harder than he had to. "They're in one of my planes, Rogers. 7 hours at the most."

For the very first time, Steve actually looked hopeful, the same stubborn streak that made him believe that one man could take on an army and succeed - and be RIGHT - shining through.

~~~~~~Steve Rogers~~~~~~~~

Steve had been hopeful when Stark had fixed the arm, but it was getting harder to remain so as hours ticked by and Bucky slowly died in front of them.

Two hours until brain death was the last update he'd received, the nurse looking sympathetic but firm when she told him, the implied message that he should say his goodbyes. That had been more than 90 minutes ago.

Sam had disappeared a bit later, and while Steve understood why, he kind of wished the paratrooper was still there. Bucky looked dead already, not responding to any stimulus - even his optic nerve had stopped responding about an hour ago - and the rise of his chest, normally a good sign, was in sync with the heavy sounds of the machine that was breathing for him.

Bucky's prosthetic lay on the table, valves and container repaired and ready to if they could just put something in it. The doctors working so hard in the basement hadn't tried anything on Bucky for hours, after yet another attempt had done nothing more than shorten the man's life another 3 hours. Instead they were waiting, desperately, for Hawkeye and Natasha. Stark had refused to leave after he returned the prosthetic, instead loitering in the back of the room, watching Bucky and occasionally making yet another tiny adjustment on the metal arm. Steve ignored him after the first 15 minutes.

Bucky lay, cold as death and twice as still, his body massacred and his mind taken decades ago. Steve sat heavily in the chair. Part of him recognized that he finally had the chance to say goodbye, and a crueler part wished he didn't have it.

"Bucky?" Steve began, carefully. "I have no idea if you can hear me..."

There was no response from the man on the bed, not that Steve was expecting one.

"You and I missed a lot, Buck. Your vanity would love what they've done with phones..."

Steve paused as the door open and Sam let himself in, but otherwise didn't change anything.

"...Sorry we kept you in the basement, Buck. Sorry we...didn't notice that we were killing you."

Steve looked up hopefully when he'd finished what he had to say. "Anything?"

Sam hesitated; glanced at the bed. "Barton and Romanova are one hour out. "

Steve jolted, staring at Sam, then deflated again "He has less than that left..."

Sam shook his head. "I won't lie, Steve, and say it will be fine. But I think you just need to fight the hardest battle of your life."

"I..."

"Don't you dare give up on him," Sam said. "You're better than that, and he deserves more than to have his best friend and hero just stop caring."

"We almost had him back, didn't we?"

Tony growled in the corner. "Just listen to the Sparrow, idiot. "

"Tony..." Sam warned. He'd picked up the "Stark...." Voice in only a few hours, Steve noted tiredly. 

"You're the hero, I'm the cranky playboy. So be a hero!" Tony ignored Sam and continued to address Steve. "I'm going to meet my plane on the roof."

The engineer paused at the door. "You could convince a rock to win a marathon. Use that to your advantage," he said before disappearing down the hallway.

"What does he think I've been do..." Steve began, when Sam cut him off. 

"No. You've been fighting _for_ him in every way imaginable. We've never once asked him." 

Steve took a deep breath, and nodded. Sam was right. Hell, _Stark_ was right. This wasn't his fight, and it hadn't been for weeks...months...years. He was just an idiot to think that it was. 

"Bucky," he said firmly. The tone he'd used when he was practicing art and Bucky would use his head as an armrest as he leaned over to snoop at the picture, invariably knocking the pencil across the page. His room had been filled with otherwise decent pieces of artwork, marred by jagged lines running through them. Bucky said they made them masterpieces. Steve had told Bucky that he was a blockhead. 

"Bucky. I need you to listen to me. You have been trying so hard. For Clint, for Sam, and for me. You've done everything we asked. I need you to do something for you, now." Steve leaned over the bed, getting as close to Bucky's ear as he could, hand on his head between the bandages wrapping them, and intensely aware of Sam watching them both. "This is your choice, Buck. I understand if you want to give up, but it's your choice to decide if you want to stay or not."

Steve trailed off, not sure what else to say and feeling like a fool for the last hour he'd spent saying nothing of substance at all. Sam was beside him again, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I was wondering when the man I followed was going to show up," the paratrooper said quietly, tone sad but approving. 

That was when Tony walked - stormed - back in. "Knew we should've taken him outside of DC. You up for Logan's Run?"

There was frustration and anger in the words, and Steve stared, uncomprehending. 

"They won't let the jet over the goddamn city," Tony snarled. "Something about how SHIELD no longer has jurisdiction to override the ADIZ..."

Steve stood up, careful not to knock any tubes around but not caring for much otherwise. "Where are they?"

"Like I said, Logan's Run. They're spitting curses near Regan. It's rush hour so we aren't getting anywhere in a car." Tony sounded sure that it wouldn't matter, and Steve was at the door less than a second later. 

"Tell Barton I'm coming," he snapped.

"Oh, he knows," Tony replied. "He said that he'll 'fuck the rules and bring the stuff to you' when you're getting close."  
Steve nodded, firmly. Took one last look at Bucky and took off down the hallway, stopping to grab his bike. It left a trail of rubber in the parking lot, and he didn't care. He could buy a new one. On the street, cars honked and drivers cursed. For the first time in his life, he didn't bother to apologize.

The bike warned that it shouldn't go over a maximum of 70mph. Steve had it at 80, and wondered if it could go faster.

Then he hit the wall of traffic, trying to go home to Virginia after a long day at work. Packed end to end in all the lanes, no room between them and no way around. He climbed off the bike and threw it to the side of the road, ready to run over the cars, if he had to, when the familiar sound of repulsor engines and turbines sounded and suddenly Natasha landed lithely on the car in front of him, holding a briefcase like it was made of solid gold. The driver honked and stared out his sunroof with shock, while other people stared nervously out their windows. Steve ignored it all. 

"Barton says Bucky is worth going to prison for. I don't intend to go to prison, but I went along with it," Natasha said, handing him a small briefcase. Steve stared at her. There was blood splattered over her and the handle of the briefcase, and she looked pissed off as she explained. "Not mine, not his. Don't make it all futile."

Steve nodded, and picked up the discarded bike as the jet wheeled around, leaving Natasha standing there as sirens began to sound. A second later, cradling the briefcase in one arm like it were a baby, the wheels of the bike were back on the road, back through cars and between trucks.

He hit the ground running, and heard the bike hit the wall of the small private hospital Stark had paid for, thought maybe it exploded; wasn't sure. Sam was standing near the bed, as were the nurses and Stark, and for one heart-stopping moment Steve wondered if...

"There's no change," Sam said quietly, which didn't mean Bucky was alive but at least meant he wasn't officially dead, and then Tony ripped the briefcase out of his hands and opened it, examining the small vial of liquid in it. He grabbed a syringe and wrenched the lid off the top, pulling a small amount into the needle.

"What the hell are you doing?" Steve asked, frustrated by even the few seconds of time wasted.

"Making sure we can make more," Stark replied sharply, before handing the syringe to the nurse and striding to the arm, still laying on the table. It took him a minute to install the vial, but in the end it clicked into place, the new valves hissing to life as they were pressurized. Tony picked up the arm and carried it to the side of the bed, where Sam and the nurse had been carefully clearing and holding away tubes from Bucky's shoulder. Magnetized and intricate, the mechanics in both pieces started reaching for each other like some sort of living object, snapping into place smoothly. 

And then...there was nothing else to do. Sam stepped back, and Steve stood at the side of the bed, desperate and hopeful, while the nurses turned up the speed on the cardiopulmonary device in an attempt to circulate the chemical faster.

30 minutes later, they turned it back down. Steve swallowed hard, waiting desperately for change.

Another 15 after that, Natasha strode into the room and said something about Barton being a wanted man, even though he followed 5 minutes later, covered in as much blood as she was.

The nurses checked vitals about an hour after that. Steve held his breath. Didn't let it go when they looked at each other and shook their heads quietly, whispering to the doctor.

"We'll leave him on the machines for now, just in case" the doctor said, looking Steve straight in the eye, his expression sad and resigned. "But there isn't any change."

Steve shook his head, rejecting the idea. Behind him, Natasha said something to Clint about punching the wall, but it was covered by a buzzing. _"you can't get drunk"_ his brain reminded him uselessly.

"No," Steve said suddenly, standing up and leaning over the bed. He grabbed both of Bucky's hands in his own, not caring if it was going to hurt him because it obviously wasn't going to matter if it didn't work, and straddled the assassin. The nurses made a distressed sound of warning, but otherwise did nothing. 

"I know you've hurt every day for seventy years. I can't even imagine how much. And I hate myself for hoping you don't remember it," he began.

He choked on the first words, but continued. "You can do this, though. I know you can. You chose to follow me, Buck. I know I said it's your choice, but you're going to disappoint a lot of people if you die. I've told them all about you. ...Only the good things, of course."

There really was nothing lef after that, and Steve deflated. Behind him, it seemed Clint had ignored Natasha's warning as the telltale sound of breaking drywall cracked through the room. Sam began to try to untangle Steve's fingers from the grip he had on Bucky's hand, and the nurses stood back, letting the grief be for now.

And then the cardio machine hiccupped. 

At least, that was what it sounded like. A half-beep, cut off only to be replaced by another. And another. The nurses jumped, and were suddenly no longer passive as they shoved Steve onto the floor. The doctor pulled out his stethoscope and pressed it to Bucky's chest, looking like he didn't know what he expected to hear, eyes going wide at whatever he did.

"His heart is beating again," he said, reaching up to fiddle with the dial on the machine, trying to synchronize the two beats. "Weak, but it's a heartbeat."

Steve stared up at the doctor, still on the floor. "He'll live?"

The nurses glanced at the doctor, then at Bucky, then at Steve. "We can't promise you anything, but it does seem he's fighting back."

Silence spread over the room, disbelieving this time. Steve looked at Clint, who was holding his hand like it was in pain, Natasha with a concerned hand on his arm. Sam looked at Steve like he wasn't sure, for the first time, what to say. 

Tony spoke first, saying with a snort, "convince a rock to win a marathon."

Two hours later, almost exactly four hours after the doctor had said he would be dead, Bucky started breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my intended ending, but I think there is going to be an epilogue after this. I realized that it was probably mean to leave it at "Bucky started breathing". 
> 
> Plus…I just wrote 20 continuous pages of Bucky falling apart, and another 30 where he falls apart in pieces. It needs some angstfluff to even that out, right?


	6. Epilogue: Phantom Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is almost ok again.
> 
> Almost.

Epilogue: Phantom Scars

~~~~~~~~Bucky Barnes~~~~~~~~~

The days after waking up had been confusing, but...good. He'd woken up to a room full of people, and recognized that none of them wanted to hurt him. He couldn't actually remember the last time that had happened. The doctor had pulled the intubation tube out of throat, and the first thing Bucky wanted to do was thank everyone for not freezing him, and to ask why he wasn't dead when he was supposed to be, but then everyone was clamoring to ask how he was and he didn't know what to say and he forgot that he was supposed to be dead because who could remember that when everyone was looking so happy about the opposite. Bucky was sure that was not the way they should be responding to his failing in his mission. Pain, not smiles, were the price of failure. 

He wasn't sure he'd ever failed a mission until Steve and this, come to think of it. It was weird. Dying, or failing the mission, or whatever had happened cleared a strange sort of mist in his head, neurons re-knitting themselves as they realized they weren't going to get wiped. Which, of course, led to him remembering things best left forgotten.

The problem with remembering was that it involved, well, _memories_. Whatever had been leaking through before the programmed self-destruction was nothing compared to what had happened since Steve had found the override switch. Nights were the worst - at least he could sleep in a bed again, most of the time - but days could also be agonizing. The sound of a car backfiring would send him reaching for a gun he no longer carried, and he was so confused about not being told what to do that occasionally a clipped, angry order - directed at him by an irate subway rider or directed at a child who on the other side of the street by a mother who didn't even process his presence - would make him shake. Sam had requested he start attending his meetings at the VA, and Bucky had ultimately agreed.

They had helped, to an extent. The support group had welcomed him, without judgment, listening sympathetically as he told the story of what horrific tale he'd remembered the previous week, never questioning that he edited facts and dates because they did it to, half of them gagged against telling specific details of their involvement by government mandate. 

Sam would take him home afterwards, and they'd end up having a private session. Sometimes in the car, sometimes sitting on the couch with the others. Often it just included dates so far back that nobody in the support group would have believed he'd been alive. 

Other times the details had been withheld because they involved, indirectly, the very people _in_ the support group. Fear campaigns that he'd instigated with a few bullets, shot into skulls late at night, in places where soldiers on both sides should have been safe; the assassinations that had led to rebellions in the streets, blame falling firmly on the shoulders of the other side because, really, a ghost in the night was a ridiculous notion.

Never once did anyone blame him, even when Bucky was blaming himself. He'd killed a toddler and made it look like the rebels had done it, just to turn a city to chaos, and Sam and Clint told him that it wasn't his fault. And he tried to believe them, because he remembered the orders. Men whose voices haunted his dreams, telling him to murder. Telling him who to kill, and ordering faceless men who rarely spoke to strap him down if he asked too many questions that were outside the basic parameters of the mission. Sometimes even if he didn't, simply because they'd changed their mind and starting over was easier than explaining the differences in his new orders.

Despite all of that, it got better. Slowly. He slept in a bed again, using a weighted blanket that wouldn't tangle in his arms, and it was strange and weird and _comfortable_ , which Bucky was sure he wasn't supposed to be.

_"Are you comfortable?" the voice asked, disembodied in the dark, and the Winter Soldier didn't know what he was supposed to say, so he said nothing, waiting for his orders._

_"I asked you a question."_

_The Soldier thought, hard, about the answer. There were buckles digging into his arm, the sharp edges of the chair pressing painfully into his back, and his head was tipped at an angle that sent the occasional wave of nausea crashing over him. "No."_

_"Excellent," the voice said, and pressed a button. The chair moved up. The buckles loosened. "Now?"_

_"Ye---" The Soldier began, only to have the chair snap down, further than before, buckles cutting where before they had been rubbing._

_"Your comfort is not for you to decide," the voice said. Then, as if on a record, the question was repeated. "Are you comfortable?"_

_The Winter Soldier didn't know what he was supposed to say, so he said nothing, waiting for orders._

_"I asked you a question..."  
_

Bucky awoke with a start, sweating heavily and with a feeling of dread pounding into his very bones. Slowly, he got out of bed and walked to the door. He eyed the stairs to the attic, and the stairs to the first floor. He started to walk to the attic.

Those weren't right. The door in front of him. Those were his standing orders. He took a hesitant step forward. Then another. His body turned towards the stairs. 

"Steve!" he called, one order overriding another, and it wasn't more than a few seconds before the door opened and Steve himself rushed out and there was a steadying hand on his shoulder a moment later.

"What's wrong?" the blond asked, all concern and confusion.

"I'm...not sure," Bucky said quietly. "I think I…am going to throw myself off the roof."

Steve stared, uncomprehending, for a moment. His hand tightened a bit more, and then his arm was around Bucky's shoulders, pulling him down off the stairs. "Lets go to the living room and make tea."

Bucky nodded, slowly. Let himself be steered down the stairs instead of up, and tried to ignore the pull that told him that he was going the wrong direction. Steve told him to sit. He sat. He waited while Steve made a phone call, and was grateful when Steve sat next to him instead of really going to make tea. 

Sam arrived a bit later. Bucky wasn't sure how long. He looked worried. Bucky was ok with that. He was worried, too.

"Steve says you want to kill yourself," Sam tried to clarify, kneeling in front of him, voice calm and even and everything Bucky had come to associate with the retired soldier. 

"I don't," Bucky said, wondering how he could explain. "Well, I _do_..."

Sam paused. Took his hands and looked him in the eye. Bucky tried not to look away. This was important. "Alright, Bucky. I need you to think carefully. Do you want to jump, or does someone want you to jump?"

"Not me," Bucky got out. "I'm supposed to..."

Sam rocked back on his heels. Steve tightened his grip. "It's ok, Bucky. We've got you."

"I know. Thank you," Bucky said miserably. He curled into a ball and ignored the voice that said he could escape them. Knock them both out and fulfill his mission easily. 

Steve didn't move. Sam walked away to make two quick phone calls, then he was back. "We're going to take you to a hospital, Bucky. You'll be fine."

Bucky nodded and curled up tighter. He didn't bother to tell them he was scared; that he didn't want to die. 

~~~~

20 minutes later and they were at the hospital. A syringe full of some sort of sedative was on the table, unused as long as he didn't try to escape, a notion that left Bucky uncomfortable and a bit ill because of _memories_ , but at least they hadn't tied him down. Steve was still at his side, Sam and Clint and Natasha all loitering by the door. They'd promised to wrestle him to the ground if he tried to leave, and he was on the ground floor.

A few minutes later the psychologists arrived, and started asking him questions. Lots of questions. Questions he didn't want to answer and questions he couldn't answer. Eventually, Bucky just shook his head in confusion, unable to answer. They told him he'd done well and stepped away to discuss his fate. They beckoned to Steve and Sam after a moment. Steve went pale. That was never a good sign. 

Steve returned first.

"They won't do anything you don't want," the blond said quietly. 

Bucky stared. He was going to throw himself off the roof, and they weren't going to let him do _that_ , so the words were an obvious lie. 

The psychologists came back. "Ok. I think Hydra had you programmed with a second trigger."

"No shit," Clint said from the door. The psychologists ignored him.

"We want to put you under. We should be able to deprogram this one. We can see if we can find any others at the same time." 

Bucky took a deep breath. "Could you be a bit more specific?"

"Basic hypnosis, for the most part," the older psychologist said. "With a few adjustments."

"You were programmed using a cocktail of chemicals," the younger one said, looking uncomfortable. "It would help if we used some of them again. Just one that..."

Bucky tensed, his eyes snapping to Steve, who looked miserable, then to Sam and the others. They all looked uncomfortable, but not a single one of them objected. The betrayal hit Bucky like a sledgehammer, and he quickly pulled his arm from out of under Steve's grasp.

"No chair, no orders, just..."

"An experiment," Bucky finished bitterly, angry and suddenly absolutely terrified for reasons other than the gnawing urge at the back of his brain to find a roof and step off. "For my own good. I shouldn't worry about it."

"I..." Sam trailed off.

"Buck..." From Steve

"Why are you so scared?" 

That was Clint. Bucky's head snapped up to stare at the archer, and Natasha who was standing next to him. Clint stepped forward, determined. 

"I'm going to ask you a question," Clint asked. "It's yes/no, and you can absolutely answer no."

Bucky waited.

"Do you trust us?"

_"Trust is not necessary. Only obedience."_

Bucky hesitated. "I..."

"As he said, no is an option," Sam said quietly. Bucky looked at Steve, who nodded.

Bucky didn't say anything for a long time, going over the past year in his head. The times they had held him down. Clint barely avoiding going to jail. Steve holding him even when he'd tried to strangle him. All of them waking up at the dead of night just to stay with him when memories and instincts got too much and he felt like he was going to explode. Dying. _Living_.

"Yes," he said so softly he could barely hear himself. 

"No ropes. No orders. No longer than necessary," Steve repeated, looking for confirmation from the psychologists, who nodded and said nothing.

Bucky nodded. "You'll stay?"

It was almost scary, how fast they agreed. Bucky took a deep breath. "Alright."

The psychologists looked pleased, told him they'd need a day to prepare, and swept from the room. Natasha watched them go, then came over.

"Just so you know," she said, sitting on the bed. "They've been in my head. They're good at what they do."

"Sort of what I'm afraid of," Bucky replied with a terse, frightened smile. "But I guess if they're still alive that's a good sign."

They stayed with him, all night, sometimes in shifts and sometimes all together. Keeping him from leaving and keeping him company at once. The psychologists came at 8:30; said they'd finished their preparations, and Bucky found himself escorted down a hallway that was far too long, fighting memories and current trepidations alike. 

The room they let him into was not exactly what he was expecting, and everything like it all at the same time. There was a large chair - not _the_ chair, Bucky reminded himself firmly - in the center. An unexpected window was in the corner, morning light peeking through the blinds.

Bucky steeled himself. This was something he knew. Carefully, he walked to the chair and sat down, staring at the ceiling. Part of him was expecting them to have lied, and he relaxed marginally when no hidden restraints snapped around his wrist. The psychologists motioned his friends to stand near the wall, although they all hovered longer than necessary, offering a word of encouragement or a hand squeeze before leaving.

The older man approached with a syringe in his hand. "This is one of the three chemicals Hydra used on you. It opens your mind to suggestion. It is the only one we'll be using, and it does _not_ affect your free will, so you have to want to let us in."

Bucky both appreciated and resented the full disclosure, but he nodded, still staring at the ceiling. The doctor administered the drug, and he slipped under.

~~~~

There wasn't any light left outside when he woke up. Everyone looked drained, and the younger psychologist had a deep purple bruise around her wrist. Bucky stared.

"Did I..."

The psychologist shook her head. "Don't worry. The Black Widow did the same thing to me. Being programmed to resist deprogramming is pretty common."

Bucky nodded, unsure. The voice bugging him to jump was gone, so he figured they were successful. "Did it work?"

"We found the one that was trying to assert itself, yeah. Apparently it was programmed to go off if you weren't in the chair for too long a period. One more, too..." the younger woman trailed off, uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"You were supposed to shoot yourself and your partner if you were intimate with anyone," Steve finished, equally uncomfortable. Bucky blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Apparently Hydra didn't want their asset to have a love life," Clint said with a snort. "Murder-suicide if anyone managed to seduce you."

Bucky paused. It should be horrifying. It really was. They had wanted him to be so removed from human that the very idea of having a partner would trigger him to self-destruct, but...it was ludicrous at the same time.

"I suppose I should be glad that none of you ever tried to kiss me." He sat up and swung his feet off the chair, standing mostly-steadily.

"I can go home?"

The psychologists exchanged a glance and nodded. "Not a problem. If anything goes wrong, both Rogers and Wilson have our numbers."

"Thanks," Bucky said, glancing curiously at his entourage as they stepped up around him. "I...don't think I need an escort."

"What if we want to?," Clint said, grinning. Before Bucky knew what was happening, Clint had an arm around his neck. To Bucky's surprise he found himself leaning into it, instead of away.

"And we could always make sure that they properly deprogrammed that intimacy thing," Natasha said with a laugh as she took his other arm.

"Um…" Bucky struggled for an answer, three or four contradictory ones colliding in his mind as he tried to decide whether to joke or recoil. 

"Yes?" Steve asked, laughing and shoving Natasha out of the way. She glared at Steve and winked at Bucky and...she was really good at what she did, Bucky realized suddenly and with a blush. He rushed to cover his embarrassment with a question that was suddenly troubling him.

"Could we stop at a barbershop?" 

Sam rolled his eyes. "Only if you call it a hair salon."

Bucky shrugged. "Barber, hair salon, snippyplace. I just need a cut."

"And a shave," Steve agreed happily. 

"And I still haven't tried a real 21st century cheeseburger."

"Whatever you want," Steve said, arm going around his waist. Bucky felt a hand at his back, knew it by now to be Sam's, before he was being pulled and pushed and basically manhandled out of the hospital, Natasha leading the way towards the doors like she wanted to escape.

For the first time since Steve had found him and he'd been dragged back to reality, Bucky didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this fic probably got me put on a watch list. In the past week I've researched the DC no-fly zone, brainwashing, PTSD and a whole slew of reasons for nervous system atrophy.
> 
> That said: Oh my god, everyone! Thank you so much for liking this as much as you have. I just went and looked in my statistics and this had SIXTY subscribers, plus the people who are subscribed via bookmark. I'm utterly floored and so grateful for everyone that liked it. You're amazing! Subscribers, kudo-ers, commenters, and lurk-readers alike. I love you all, and hope that the epilogue lived up to your expectations. Thank you so, so much! <3 <3 <3
> 
> (Now to finish Abnegation…)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments both conversational and concrit appreciated, and thank you for reading! :)


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